Angela Matelli has a brownstone (and mortgage) in East Boston, a large, somewhat eccentric, extended Italian family, and a mother who wants nothing more than for her daughter to find the right man, settle down, and shut down her business. In her late twenties, having recently left the Marines, Angela is no scratching out a living as a private investigator on Boston's mean streets. Unlike in the movies, however, that means a lot of car repossessions and insurance investigations. So when Cynthia MacDonald wants Angela to find the person who is using her identity to run up fraudulent credit card bills, and ruining her credit rating in the process, she is in no position to refuse.

Angela finds it surprisingly easy to track the woman responsible for the "true-name" fraud of Cynthia MacDonald. Lisa Browning, however, is a single mother trapped in a financial bind, and Angela can't help but take pity on her. Instead of turning her in, Angela decides to give her a chance to roll over on the people above her in the fraud ring. But then Lisa Browning is murdered.

Feeling responsible, maybe a bit guilty, and definitely angry, Angela decides to go after the person who murdered Lisa Browning. The only problem is that it may well have been the person who hired Angela to find her in the first place.