A dowdy woman hires private eye Albert Samson to locate her college chum. But is she missing or has she just run away from her husband?

A stop-start case takes Samson out of his Indianapolis comfort zone into Southern Indiana where he picks his way through intrigues, lies, and lures and where he tangles with a hostile police force. Everyone has something to hide.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if things did turn out to be as advertised, at least now and then. However here he scrapes the deceptions aside and works his way to the bottom of a tantalizing puzzle in a novel that was adapted for television in Japan.