With a month off from Homicide, soft-boiled detective Stanley Bentworth bails out to accept an invitation from an old pal to consult as head of security for a high-tech startup corporation.

But when a company executive is discovered with a bullet in his brain, Stanley finds himself drawn into a homicide investigation with overtones of corporate espionage and domestic terrorism, all the while butting heads with his counterparts in the local police. Instead of a much-needed rest, he is up to his eyeballs in the cold, heartless, and even sinister world of corporate finance, giving new meaning to the phrase hostile takeover.