In his latest investiagion, private eye Cliff Hardy comes to the aid of retired senior policeman and longtime friend, Frank Parker. Haunted by a case from his early career involving two doctors, Parker needs Hardy to uncover the truth and find out if one of the doctors, now deceased, was wrongly convicted and if Parker was blinded by the passion he had for the presumed-guilty doctor’s wife. Granite-faced Hardy discovers that teasing out the truth is not easy as he sorts through old memories, aging names and faces, and his friend’s guilt while encountering the likes of dodgy plastic surgeons, a broken-down ex-copper, a voyeuristic cripple, and a hired hit man who wields a mean baseball bat. Animosities, arrogance, and ambition create a dangerous spider’s web around this reluctant hero as Hardy searches for the hard truth.
