[2][3] The novel is set in 1984 and features a significant development in Kinsey's personal back-story, as she discovers that she has extensive family living in the Lompoc area.

Kinsey Millhone's former employer, California Fidelity Insurance, hires her to investigate the alleged reappearance of Ponzi schemer Wendell Jaffe.

Jaffe was assumed to have died five years previously when his boat, the Captain Stanley Lord, was found drifting off the Baja coast.

He left behind a suicide note, a number of angry investors, and a family: a wife, Dana, along with sons Michael and Brian.

Renata confesses that she killed Wendell, dumped his body at sea, and then set the Lord adrift, making her way back to shore in her own dinghy.