Mario Balzic, retired police chief of Rocksburg Pennsylvania, swaps his service uniform for the shirt and tie of the private cop, trading his former blue-collar beat for a new white-collar clientele. There's been a burglary at the local gun shop, and Balzic must track down the missing arsenal. Stolen guns mean trouble, and under Balzic's dogged sleuthing the said trouble takes the form of a corrupt married politico cheating with a stripper; a police chief a couple of towns over hungry for the influence a little improved firepower can buy; a deli owner known as the Fat Buddha who mixes racketeering with the cold cuts and the gangsters hapless nephew, framed for selling porn and drugs.

Suddenly Balzic is brought low by a cardiac episode. This personal crisis combines with an equally sudden murder to turn a solitary job into a singular mission: to stay alive, at least long enough to crack one more case...