All Simona wanted was a few weeks enjoying some long walks on the beach, a swim in the ocean and cool drinks under the hot sun, but her vacation is shockingly interrupted when her neighbor and friend, Bud Warren, is found floating face-down in the inlet behind his house. Fun turns to danger as the East Hampton heat wave intensifies and Simona finds herself caught up in what appears to be a murder.

Simona starts digging into Bud's past to answer the question of who would have wanted him dead. An advertising executive beginning to lose patience with the rat race of New York, Bud had been less than enthusiastic about his business in recent months. Then there's the question of his ex-wife, Polly, who killed herself one year earlier. Could the deaths be related to a hidden secret? Accompanied by her burly Russian counterpart-in-crime, Dmitri, Simona begins to learn much more about Bud's life than she ever expected to know.