Lately, underappreciated and underpaid PI Marlowe has found more doors than usual closed to him. He has only himself to blame, really. He doesn't exactly have a reputation for good things happening to him or the people around him, and it certainly doesn't help that he's (un)lucky enough to be the star witness against the City's most notorious human criminal. Given the very high risk of ending up collateral damage, neither the reasonably intelligent nor the unreasonably stupid are dim enough to be caught dead standing next to him. As if to reinforce that sentiment, the other high profile witness in the trial, Marlowe's bodyguard, wife, and certified spacewoman (though not necessarily in that order), Nina, has been kidnapped. It's up to Marlowe to rescue her, but if there is one constant he can count on, it's that not everything is as it seems...