Milan Jacovich, Cleveland's private eye extraordinaire, gets the usual PI's run of cases - checking on insurance claims, looking for missing persons, validating a job applicant's credentials. But now and again, along comes the unusual case - one that is really out of Milan's sphere, but which he takes on from a sense of justice, for personal reasons, and even if the client can't afford to pay.

There's nothing pro bono about Milan's current case. His client is a woman of status and wealth. But it is definitely on the personal side. It seems that Judge Maureen Hartigan has a serious problem that she wants kept quiet. And since her daughter, Cathleen, and Milan have had an off-again-on-again friendship, which only teeters on the edge of something more, she asks Cathleen to call him. Judge Hartigan, a woman of impeccable reputation, has unwittingly given refuge to a scam artist. Through her, Cathleen had become involved with the man, and all because Cathleen's cousin, Hugh, had been a sucker. It happened in a familiar way: The man came into an Irish bar, made a beeline for Hugh, who was drinking alone and a little in his cups, told him that he was just off the plane from Ireland and that his luggage, containing not only his clothes but his passport and wallet, was lost; he had no clean clothes, no money, no identification, no credit cards. Could Hugh help him until the luggage was found? Hugh, a fellow Irishman, even though one a couple of generations removed from the Auld Sod, thought, Sure.

Judge Hartigan doesn't expect to recover the money this "Brian McFall" has stolen. She wants revenge. It is Milan's job to find the man. Then he is saved the trouble when McFall turns up shot to death. The missing-person case becomes a homicide, one that Lieutenant McHargue, Milan's nemesis, warns him to keep out of. Milan doesn't heed the warning. He wants to finish what he started: He wants to help Cathleen and her mother.