When J.P. Beaumont's teenaged daughter runs away, her tracks lead the sober-but-struggling sleuth to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. And, in addition to his very headstrong offspring, Beau find something else backstage: a case of cold-blooded murder.
When software seller Tadeo Kurobashi, an amateur student of Samurai history, is found dead with a Samurai sword in his hand, hara-kiri is suspected, but an error in the ancient ritual leads Detective Sergeant J. P. Beaumont to suspect murder.
Detective J. P. Beaumont uncovers kickbacks and bribes in a Seattle ironworker's union, but his investigation may be curtailed by a long walk off a short I-beam.
When Dr. Frederick Nielson, a dentist with a taste for administering pain, turns up dead in his own chair, Seattle Homicide Detective J. P. Beaumont investigates the many suspects in the case and uncovers sordid allegations of cruelty, infidelity, violence, and sexual abuse.
