Former New Yorker Dan Fortune has moved his private investigation business to laid-back Southern California so he can live with his new love, Kay Michaels. The natural beauty of Santa Barbara is stunning - shimmering beaches and snow-capped mountains - but it does nothing to stop murder. It begins when Fortune is hired to track down businessman Jack Price. ... All his life, Price chased eights - searching against the odds for the one poker hand that would win him the big jackpot. But when Price discovers his latest business venture might be his last, and then a member of his weekly poker game is killed, he runs for his life, and Fortune can't find him. In the next fifteen hours of an all-night poker game, a dangerous drama unfolds. Did the poker player, Santos Torena, die because he was involved with coyote boss Pax Linero? Or was it his secret connection to another player, the electronics whiz nicknamed the Genius? And who are the two strangers who flew into town that afternoon? Through the deepening shadows of the resort city, Fortune and Jack Price play a violent game with silent killers, searching for answers among the wheeler-dealers, street people, night denizens, dropouts, drunks, coyotes, and gamblers. It's a race against time and death. Will Fortune be able to rescue Price from his enemies - and from Price himself?