Santa Fe lawyer Ed Eagle fell in love with the seductive Barbara Kennerly and married her--against his better judgment. Turns out that Ed should have listened to his intuition. On the morning of his fortieth birthday, he awakens to find that Barbara has vanished, and his money has been wired to the Cayman Islands. Barbara, it appears, drugged his birthday wine, neatly cleaned him out and then fled to Mexico, where she can't be extradited.

And as if that weren't bad enough, when Ed arrives at work that morning he discovers that he's been assigned a new client: Joe Big Bear, a part-time mechanic charged with a triple homicide, who, Ed soon discovers, may also be embroiled in Barbara's plot...