Four stunning trophy wives hire Spenser to protect them from a blackmailer threatening to expose their infidelities. For a private eye of Spenser's abilities and contacts, tracking down Gary Eisenhower, the blackmailer and serial adulterer, isn't too difficult - but almost in spite of himself Spenser finds that he quite likes the guy. Certainly the women, with their loose purse-strings and looser morals, and their loveless marriages to rich, powerful, corrupt men, are hard to feel sorry for. But a killing soon changes the complexion of the case, and draws Spenser into the world of Boston's monied aristocracy: a world of corruption, vice and murder.