Hard living collects its fair share of casualties, but somehow Leo Waterman avoided becoming one of them. Destined for a trust fund that was taking too damn long to kick in, he spent years eking out a living in Seattle as a private investigator. Along the way he managed to survive countless run-ins with murderers, drug dealers, and jealous wives. But when Rebecca, the love of his life, dumped him to marry someone else...that was a different story. Still, he took it like a man, eventually collecting his family money and slipping into semi-retirement -- until the day an unwelcome visitor brings him the worst possible news. Rebecca has vanished and no one, not even her manipulative, overprotective mother, can find a trace of her. Together with his band of informers and sidekicks (in truth a rather motley crew of homeless drunks and reprobates), Leo wades back into the game, determined to save Rebecca once and for all. But her trail is a twisted one, thick with deception and depravity that winds from the rain-swept streets of Seattle to the murky depths of the great North Woods. The stink of it all seems to emanate from none other than Rebecca#146;s new husband, Brett Ward, whose tangle of lies will cast Leo into the path of a ruthless gang that will stop at nothing -- not even murder -- to protect what#146;s theirs.