Bob Smithers is dead, although few in the tournament bridge scene will shed any tears. Art Fraser, the ambitious Buffalo police lieutenant assigned to the case, knows the bridge world well. But Smithers made enemies easily, both at the bridge table and away from it, and Art has plenty of potential murderers to investigate. Even his own bridge friends have to be treated as suspects, and he begins to uncover a complex tangle of jealousy, ambition, sex, and deceit amongst people to whom bridge is far more than just a game. Then a second body shows up...