The robbery is planned with the help of a Critical Path Analysis computer program, but unforeseen events get in the way.

The women were irrelevant, as the men's real interest was the hotel's safe, which would net them a million dollars in jewels, cash, and traveler's checks.

[1] As in many other Crichton novels the chapters are named by date as in a diary, rather than by number or other content.

A reader at Doubleday loved the book but thought it was "too saucy" for that company, so sent it on to a friend at New American Library.

[4] Crichton used the name John Lange because at this stage he planned to be a doctor and did not want his patients worried he would use them for his plots.