Partners in Janus Investigations, Lafayette "Lafe" Larson and Mike Zwygert jokingly refer to themselves as the "two ugly detectives" due to their looks.

But Lafe and Mike face real ugliness when a young Down Syndrome woman unexpectedly shows up in their office and asks them to find her missing sister - and has an astonishing amount of money to pay for an investigation. As long as it's kept secret from her father.

The partners land neck-deep in a vortex of jealousy, drugs, family dysfunction, and murder. Deaths pile up, and they must work hard not to find themselves and their client on top of that pile.