"I want to hire you to look for my grandson," she said.
I found a pencil and opened my notebook to a page without doodles. "How long has he been missing?"
"Nineteen years."

Spring has come to Detroit's Sugartown enclave, and Amos Walker would like to feel kindly toward the human race. Unfortunately, his first case of the new season immediately leads him into trouble among the Polish settlers of neighbouring Hamtramck, when old Martha Evancek hires him to look for her missing grandson.

But even before Walker gets a chance to investigate the almost two-decade-old disappearance, a second case presents itself. This time, it's an eminent Russian novelist, exiled and famous, who fears that someone is trying to cancel his next book by cancelling its author.

Something connects the two cases; Walker knows it. But finding that elusive link might just wind up costing him his life . . .