 Actor Craig Sampson takes a crossbow arrow right in the chest during a performance of the Port City Theater s latest nonsensical play. Since Susan is on the Theater s board and the Port City Police can t really be trusted, she brings in Spenser to investigate, and he gets caught up in a world of marital infidelity, mistargeted affections, police corruption, and the veritable enslavement of illegal immigrants at the hands of the local Triads.