 Mac s closest friend from Francew, a high-ranking police inspector who recently married a San Francisco socialite, comes to town to show her off and talk business with his wealthy father-in-law. Mac can t give his buddy the royal treatment because he s just arrested a bullying lawyer for witness intimidation. The lawyer, from the inside, apparently hires a gunman to follow Mac around and fire warning shots at him. When Mac and Sally attend a fancy-dress ball, the inspector s wife (herself an old friend of Mac s) asks to talk to Mac on an outside balcony. A rifle shot rings out and she falls dead. Everyone thinks that the hired gunman fired at Mac and made a tragic miss, and the police inspector threatens to go ballistic in his search for the killer. But was Mac the real target? The plot thickens when the inspector narrowly escapes a bombing and another person -- with no ties to the gunman -- is murdered. Were the inspector, his wife or possibly both of them the targets, and why?