As he is setting up a law practice in a small town Oregon, Lorenzo Madrid is faced with two vexing cases. In one, he must get a young politician out of a mental clinic where his unscrupulous stepmother had him committed so she can gain control of his family's timber company. In the other, an old flame of Lorenzo's good friend Tom Martindale asks for help in adopting an Ecuadorian orphan. The problem is, she has already taken him to the U.S. When she returns to that country, she is imprisoned. In the meantime, Lorenzo must fend off unknown assailants. Were they hired by the stepmother or are they members of a drug gang he helped shut down several years before? Reluctant at first to care for Tito, the orphan, Lorenzo grows to love the little boy. As in past Lovell mysteries, the Pacific Ocean brings the characters together in a dangerous showdown by the sea.