Clay Blackburn has two jobs. Most of the time he’s a book scout in Berkeley. Some of the time he’s... not quite a private detective. He doesn’t have a license, he doesn’t have a gun, he doesn’t have a business card—but people come to him for help and in helping them he comes across more than his fair share of trouble. And all the time he’s a poet. When fellow poet and old flame Peggy Denby asks him to help clear up some details about her husband’s death, details that include lots of missing money and rare Etruscan artifacts, he’s willing to oblige her. After she’s murdered, he keeps looking—and comes across a good-looking banker, Peggy’s hostile stepson, her strangely attractive stepdaughter, and more than a few Berkeley crazies.