Having also recently been dumped by his girlfriend, Nicole, he begins investigating an unexplained series of phone calls from men looking for "Lilly" to distract himself.

Finding the company that hosts the site and the owner's name, Billy Wentz, Pierce visits its office.

He finds no sign of her there and enlists his friend Cody Zeller, a white hat hacker, to investigate Wentz.

Days later, his presentation wins a major investor, though he grows paranoid when he finds an unfamiliar key in his bag for a storage unit bought under his name.

In the aftermath, Pierce discusses with Condon their next steps now that their project has been greenlit, and seeks to make amends with Nicole.

Pierce's sister Isabelle was a victim of the Dollmaker, a serial killer that was shot and killed by Harry Bosch in The Concrete Blonde (1994).

The adult website that Wentz runs, "LA-Darlings," is mentioned as being used by another character in The Lincoln Lawyer (2005) to advertise their services.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the novel "...creates a scarily high-tech brand of intrigue.