Plot summary

Seattle-based psychiatrist Dr. Margaret Ford should be riding the crest of a wave in the success that is her first book on obsession and compulsion, and having a thriving practice, however she is oddly unfulfilled with her life largely in believing that she is of little to no practical use to her most troubled of patients, one in prison for killing her abusive father, and another, gambling addict Billy Hahn, threatening suicide in being unable to pay a massive gambling debt, that inability to pay which would soon end his life anyway at the hands of his debtee. In the process of trying to help one of her patients in that practical sense, she meets a group of con artists, led by the charismatic Mike Mancuso. In taking the suggestion of her mentor, Dr. Maria Littauer, to do something that truly makes her happy, Margaret decides she wants to write another book, and Mike agrees to be her subject in she wanting to understand the psyche of the high end con artist, her experience with Mike and his group which has thus far added a sense of excitement to her life. However, in getting involved with Mike, who she is attracted to in a romantic sense, she may get herself in above her head in Mike's work at its core being much like her own but in a criminal sense.—Huggo