Thirty-eight year old Lester Miller, six foot tall with a taut belly, realizes he is approaching forty and, despite having two failed marriages, still doesn’t have any children. His last girlfriend, Cara, left him and married his best friend, Mario Fleming. Luckily, Lester can avoid facing the pain of losing Cara, whom he still loves, by immersing himself in his job as a Chicago Police Department detective. He hopes to take a spot on the FBI and get a new start.

Retired cop Sonny Newsome saved Lester’s life years ago by taking a bullet in the shoulder that would have hit Lester in the back. Sonny has been married to the same woman for forty-five years but carries on an affair with his secretary, Valarie, that has produced one child. Suffering poor health, Newsome calls Lester asking for a favor. His private investigating company is about to go into bankruptcy and he’s had to let all his detectives go because he can’t pay them. He asks Lester to handle two cases for him, and Lester agrees.

Meanwhile, there is a drive-by shooting at Lester’s ex-wife Brenda’s house. She is currently dating Duncan Tate, a shady bi-sexual (a fact unknown to her) man, who has broken it off with his male “friend” Cecil Hawkins, the boss of a drug operation who is not happy about the breakup of the two- year relationship. Duncan was previously married to Jennifer, who police believe committed suicide. Jennifer’s mother, Gayle doesn’t believe that her daughter killed herself by overdose, and she hires the Newsome Investigation Company to further examine the facts of the case.

Gayle is not overly fond of Duncan and believes he staged her daughter’s suicide to gain the insurance money. Gayle is dating Alderman Giles Bennett, who helps her with her finances. Bennett, a.k.a. Matthew Fleming, is brother to Mario Fleming, the man who stole Cara from Lester and Lester’s former best friend.

Margie Gosa Shivers gets every possible inch out of each of her characters. There is enough death, corruption and betrayal to satisfy any reader. In soap-opera fashion, these characters are tightly woven and steadily meddling in each other’s lives. Unfortunately, this book wasn’t proofed adequately before printing; numerous misspelled words or absent words riddle the text. Mixed tenses also detract from the story.