The adventures of trial lawyer Eddie Terrell continue. His professional life is prospering. His personal life is a dumpster fire. Usually racing to the prize fight, Eddie comes to the realization that he needs to beat a hasty retreat from the enticing flames and recalibrate on his own impulsive and subjective terms.

Wishing to expand his professional interests by accomplishing something on the darker side, Eddie decides to head an investment scheme with a promising payoff. Of course, there are risks that must be navigated, risks that might require dangerously effective actions.

Set in the early 2000s, Eddie is, as always, fascinated by women and they by him. Out West while resting his addled mind, he finds a new friend who is beautiful, bold, and game. She matches him wit for wit as he takes the paths less traveled and begins to make it up on the fly with trusted partners from the less than high-end zip codes. Even Eddie's oft-imperious, oft-skeptical mother is intrigued.

Crawling out of his personal funk, Eddie reorganizes his life through unusual means, jumping the rails and going awry plenty, but always yanking himself back on course. And his newfound stimuli further ramp up his always tenacious trial skills. He welcomes orderly disorder, the playing of chess on four levels.

This is a work of fiction embedded in the truth of conflict and calculation.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson intoned, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."