Once public detective, now turned private, Mario Balzic is hired to track down the missing guns from the local gun shop for the insurance company. But no one knows better than this seasoned officer that stolen guns can only point to bigger trouble. It's not long before Balzic's dogged sleuthing points to a wide variety of suspects; a corrupt married politico cheating with a stripper; a police chief hungry for the influence a little improved firepower can buy; a dell owner who mixes racketeering with the cold cuts; and the gangster's hapless nephew, framed for selling porn and drugs. As if that weren't enough to handle, Balzic is soon brought low by a sudden cardiac episode. Now an intimately personal crisis combines with an equally sudden murder to turn a solitary job into a singular mission: stay alive, at least long enough to crack one more case.