Hired by an aggrieved Boston aristocrat who believes his wife's brutal slaying to be something other than random violence, Spenser immediately senses that his client's picture-perfect portrayal of his family life is false. For starters, the victim's reputation is too saintly, her house is as lived-in as stage set, and her troubled children don't appear to be products of a happy home. Spenser plungers into a world of grand illusion, peopled with cardboard cutouts, including a distinguished public servant with plenty to hide, a wealthy executive whose checks bounce, a sleepy Southern town seething with scandal, and a victim who may or may not be really dead.