Heidi Bradshaw is wealthy, beautiful, and well connected - and she needs Spenser's help. In a most unlikely request, Heidi, a notorious gold digger recently separated from her latest husband, recruits the Boston P.I. to accompany her to her private island, Tashtego, for her daughter's wedding. Spenser is unsure of what his role as personal bodyguard will entail, but he consents when it's decided that he can bring his beloved Susan Silverman along.
It should be a straightforward job for Spenser: show up for appearances, have some drinks, and spend some quality time with Susan. Yet when his old nemesis Rugar - the Gray Man - arrives on Tashtego, Spenser realizes that something is amiss. With a hurricane-level storm brewing outside, the Gray Man jumps into action, firing fatal shots into the crowd of wedding guests and kidnapping the bride - but Spenser knows that the sloppy guns-for-hire abduction is not Rugar's style. Unable to prevent the attack, Spenser will stop at nothing to recover the kidnapped bride and figure out how the Gray Man is connected. Key witnesses are dead, however, and Heidi Bradshaw is uncooperative, so Spenser has little to go on. With Hawk at his right hand, he finally discovers a decades-old connection among the men in Heidi's life. It's up to Spenser to decide who the real enemy is ... before more people end up dead.