Doc Ford returns to his stilt house on Dinkin's Bay to find an old friend and onetime lover waiting for him. Her real estate developer husband has disappeared and been pronounced dead, and she's sure there's worse to follow - and she's right. Following the trail, Ford ends up deep in the Everglades, at the gate of a community presided over by a man named Bhagwan Shiva (formerly Jerry Singh). Shiva is big business, but that business has been a little shaky lately, so he's come up with a scheme to enhance both his cash and his power. Of course, there's the possibility that some people could get hurt and the Everglades itself damaged, but Shiva smells a killing. And if that should turn out to be literally, as well as figuratively, true... well that's just too damned bad.