As a former investigative journalist, Milwaukee private eye Barry Pool is more adept at crafting sentences than at handling a gun. So when he's asked to find the missing son of a prominent U.S. Senate candidate, he isn't sure he wants to face the serious danger the job might entail, even though it would pay him more money than he has made since switching careers. He takes the job, accepting the risk for the sake of the money. But after uncovering a murderous neo-Nazi conspiracy and being drawn into a volatile mix of urban racial tension and high-stakes politics, he wonders if he'll live to spend it.