Back in New York City after the London adventures of The Short Forever, cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington is approached by a colleague at the firm of Woodman & Weld who needs help with a celebrity divorce case. Heiress Elena Marks needs proof of her layabout husband's infidelity before she can begin divorce proceedings. When the undercover work Stone sets up turns dirty-and catastrophic-leaving the errant husband dead and the mystery woman gone without a trace, Stone must clear his own good name and find a killer hiding among the glitterati of New York's high society.

Carpenter-the beautiful British intelligence agent first encountered in The Short Forever-arrives in New York to begin an investigation of her own; Stone suspects that her case is strangely connected to the dead husband. And he and Dino, his former NYPD partner, are set to face the most bizarre and challenging assignment of their very colorful careers.