First as a reporter and then as a PI Tess Monaghan has learned how to survive and thrive on the streets of Baltimore. But a new case will force her to confront her own past - and a man she once loved. It starts when she gets a newspaper photograph of an old boyfriend with part of a headline attached: BIG TROUBLE. The answer to the mystery lies far from Baltimore, deep in a world of good-time music, old-fashioned ambition and rich people's games. And Tess must find out what happened to the man she once loved and the woman who changed him - and the connection to a series of murders . . .