Nord Lafferty hires Kinsey Millhone to watch his daughter, thirty-two-year old Reba, who has just gotten out of jail, and make sure that she stays away from drinking, drugs, and gambling, but Reba is soon re-united with the ex-boss who got her into jail, land developer Alan Beckwith.

Kinsey Millhone, a private investigator in the small California town of Santa Teresa, faces a formidable enemy when she begins to suspect there is something not right about Solana Rojas, the home health care nurse hired to look after Kinsey's elderly neighbor and friend Gus.

"Thirty-four years ago, Violet Sullivan put on her party finery and left for the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. She was never seen again"--Container.

Private investigator Kinsey Millhone investigates the disappearance of Dr. Dowan Purcell, who is a geriatric specialist and runs a nursing home, and everyone is a suspect, including his ex-wife, Fiona, his current wife, Crystal, and one of his daughters.

An ex-con turns up dead after he hires Kinsey to locate a kid who'd done him a favor and pass on a check for $25,000.

"Two dead bodies changed the course of my life that fall. One of them I knew and the other I'd never laid eyes on until I saw him in the morgue. The first was a local PI of suspect reputation. He'd been gunned down near the beach at Santa Teresa. It looked like a robbery gone bad. The other was on the beach six weeks later. He'd been sleeping rough. Probably homeless. No identification. A slip of paper with Millhone's name and number was in his pants...