Live is never dull in the 'Burg. Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum knows that her boyfriend, Joe Morelli, would rather her job was a little more tame and domestic. Anything really would be acceptable that didn't involve guns, getting her car regularly blown up and being in close contact with the dangerously attractive Ranger, also a bounty hunter on the side. Stephanie lands herself with a teenage son of the 'Burg when his mother fails to make her court appearance and it isn't only Stephanie who is noticing that the kid looks a heck of a lot like Morelli. Distant cousins supposedly, and so trouble is taken to Morelli's doorstep when he agrees to keep an eye on the apprentice graffiti artist and junior gamer master.
In trying to locate Loretta the skipper, Stephanie makes contact with Loretta's unbalanced brother Dom, fresh out of the clink and supposedly in possession of certain stolen proceeds that she feels could help with Loretta's bonding fee. Dom still holds the family suspicion that Morelli could be sitting on dear departed Auntie Rose's fortune and is determined to get his piece of it. If that involves half the 'Burg fronting up with shovels to the house, then so be it. Meanwhile Stephanie has a high-profile customer to protect on her visit to Trenton who isn't averse to shining the loving light of cheap publicity a little more brightly on herself, caring little of how hard that will make poor Stephanie's life become.