As the book opens, Izzy is on hiatus from Spellman, Inc, but when her boss Milo simultaneously cuts her bartending hours and introduces her to a "friend" looking for a private eye, Izzy reluctantly finds herself with a new client. She comforts herself that the case – a suspicious husband who wants his wife tailed – will be short and sweet, and will involve nothing more than the most boring of PI rituals: surveillance. But with each passing hour, Izzy finds herself with more questions than hard evidence.

Meanwhile, Spellmania continues. Izzy's brother David, the family's most upright member, has adopted an uncharacteristically unkempt appearance and attitude toward work, life – and Izzy. And their wayward youngest sister, Rae, an historic academic underachiever, aces the PSATs, and subsequently offends her study partner and object of obsession, Detective Henry Stone, to the point of ex-communication. The only unsurprising behavior comes from her parents, whose visits to Milo's bar amount to thinly veiled surveillance and artful attempts (read: blackmail) at getting Izzy to return to the Spellman, Inc, fold.

As the case of the wayward wife continues to vex her, Izzy's personal life – and mental health – seem to be disintegrating. Facing a housing crisis, she can't sleep, she can't remember where she parked her car, and despite her shrinks' (plural) persistence, she can’t seem to break through in her court-ordered appointments. She certainly can't explain why she forgets dates with her lawyer Morty's grandson, or fails to interpret the come-ons issued in Irish brogue by Milo's new bartender. Nor can she explain exactly how she feels about Detective Henry Stone and his plans to move in with his new Assistant DA girlfriend. . . .