When an old friend pulls Richard Jury into the investigation of a wealthy bachelor's murder, Jury's not sure what's more perplexing: the circumstances of the fellow's death, the conflicted stories of the man's past, or the motivations of the case's lead detective - the beautiful and forbidding Lu Aguilar. But he is sure that he's in over his head, both with the challenging Aguilar and the false leads surrounding the once-charismatic Billy Maples, last seen in a club named Dust.