It started with the murder of Kinsey Millhone's sometime drinking buddy, an insurance claims adjuster. But before long Kinsey stumbles onto a massive insurance scam. Going undercover as a wisecracking vamp, Millhone descends into the Los Angeles nether world of machismo and gang hideouts. Her companion, terrified at having crossed the violent crook Raymond Maldonado, is Bibianna Diaz - no Girl Scout herself.

Detective Richard Jury, in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound, becomes intrigued with the mystery of the disappearance of his surgeon's teenage daughter who was apparently kidnapped nearly two years earlier from her grandfather's stud farm, along with a champion horse.