It's June 1969 in New York City. The moon is in the second house, Jupiter has aligned with Mars, and private investigator Tim Coates is having his own personal summer of love. A gorgeous blonde girl hires him to find her missing mother. Finally, his life is starting to look like Nero Wolfe's! But Ellie Quartern and her mom are not your standard damsels in distress. They share an eerie and destructive secret that warps hearts and destroys lives. As Tim digs deeper into their dark private world, he's not in a mystery, but a horror novel. And he discovers that the Rolling Stones were wrong. Even when you get what you want, you just might find that it's not at all what you need.