Back from a stint in Monterey, where her love life took a tumble, Nina Reilly has returned to her South Lake Tahoe law office. Two years earlier, the wife of a new client had been killed during a casino-district robbery. The police have no suspects. Three student witnesses, the robbery victims, lied about their identities and are hiding outside California and the reach of the court.

Nina has to find those witnesses. She tracks down two of them in a village not far from the European home of Kurt, her ex-lover and father of her teenage son. As Nina unravels the events of the night of the murder, she exposes the secrets and lies lurking behind tragedy. Threatened with exposure by Nina's activities, the biggest liar of all sets in motion a string of violence and untimely death.