This installment of the Brandt and Brooks series, set at the height of Vancouver's neon era-autumn, 1957, to be exact-begins with Joe Brooks and his associates burglarizing an estate. From there, the purpose of the burglary becomes clear, and is followed by a political assassination, a gang killing, the strange demise of a dope-peddling junky, the smuggling and trafficking of cocaine, and three mysterious disappearances. It is up to Richard Brandt, Esq. and his agents to put all the pieces together, however, Brandt is the first of three people to disappear. With Brandt's disappearance, it is up to his right-hand-man, Joe Brooks, to take over, and lead the team in search of a Colombian drug cartel's hitman. As usual, Joe Brooks narrates the tale, giving his own, often humourous, slant to the investigation, which takes him from the Colombian embassy, to an undercover stint on skid-row, to a posh gambling ship.