Used to defending an unpleasant parade of mob enforcers, two-bit hoods, and other riffraff, Victor Carl - lawyer, loser, and occasional hapless hero - has a new case. A terrified young woman has offered him an unusual yet substantial proposition: to prove that the recent suicide of Philadelphia heiress Jacqueline Shaw was not a suicide at all, but murder.

Philadelphia lawyer Victor Carl is just itching for the opportunity to sell out. Then good fortune comes knocking in the guise of William Prescott III, an attorney from one of the city's most prestigious firms. Prescott wants Victor to represent a councilman's aide who is on trial, along with his boss, for extortion, arson, and murder. And all Carl has to do is show up, shut up, and follow Prescott's lead. But it soon becomes clear that someone's setting him and his client up to take a long, hard fall.

All Victor Carl knows is that he's just woken up with his suit in tatters, his socks missing, and a stinging pain in his chest thanks to a new tattoo he doesn't remember getting: a heart inscribed with the name Chantal Adair.

A beautiful young woman is dead, her husband convicted of the murder. In seeking a new trial for the husband, defense attorney Victor Carl must confront not only a determined prosecutor and a police detective who might have set up his client, but also a strange little busybody named Bob.

Late one night Victor Carl gets a panicked phone call from an old law school classmate. Guy Forrest claims he has just found the body of his fiancé lying murdered in the house they shared. The victim is Hailey Prouix, for whose love Guy had abandoned his children, his job, his wife, his life. Hailey had mesmerized every man she ever met, including, unbeknownst to Guy, Victor Carl.

A defense attorney who lives his life in shades of gray, Victor Carl fights all the right fights for all the wrong reasons. With a failing legal practice, a dead-end love life, and a pile of unpaid traffic tickets, Victor skates on the razor's edge of legal ethics in search of the easy buck. But the one absolute in Victor's life is loyalty, especially to a client, even if he happens to be dead.