“… a well-crafted, enjoyable and intriguing mystery that, for better or worse, is a little heavy on the protagonist’s breast-level view of the world.” – IndieReader It’s easy to be a nobody when you’ve got nothing to lose, but with his life and potential redemption on the line, can Monk be a somebody people will remember? A dead man’s money is just waiting to be had. A band of fools and a nobody named Monk Buttman unwittingly find themselves caught in a web of murder and revenge between two unseen factions using them as bait. After a good day ends in murder, Monk is tasked with finding the killer. Why him? He’s a nobody! Stuck between powerful forces he can neither control or understand, Monk must survive both the fools and those pulling the strings while also dealing with the affections of two very different women, the troubled Agnes and the disaffected Judith, not to mention the irritation of his erstwhile partner, Mr. Jones. A beating forces Monk to question his own motives and to confront the past that led him to hide in LA. With love and life on the line, Monk must use his wits and guile for all of them to survive.

Having successfully survived the Marshan affair, Monk Buttman is looking forward to nothing more than a peaceful life filled with days at the beach. However, an unexpected call from his estranged daughter, Rebekah, pulls Monk back to Virginia and back through his past, something he doesn’t want to do. But family ties run deep, and before Monk can think it through, he, Agnes, and Rebekah, find themselves on the road searching for Rebekah’s runaway husband, encountering ghosts and angels, God and love, and murder along the way.

Monk finds life is nice and simple when you don’t think too hard about what you’re doing or the lies you tell yourself. Believing his relationship with Judith is over, and a happy content life with Agnes is his to enjoy, Monk is shocked to find, tragically, that's not true. While dealing with a dying lover, Monk is dogged by family, business, gangsters, cranky widows, and a mystery woman who claims Monk has stolen her money.

Adjusting to his newfound wealth, Monk meets his youngest brother, Jacob, a Marine. Withdrawn and anxious, Jacob joins Monk in LA only to run off after an accusation of sexual assault from a dead comrade’s mother. Jacob is found dead from an apparent suicide. Trying to understand what drove Jacob to kill himself, Monk learns that many of Jacob’s fellow Marines have died from suicide or murder.Joined by his father, Moses, Monk does what can to discover what happened to the Marines on their last tour in Afghanistan, and what led so many of them to take their own lives., Monk and Moses find themselves targets, with Monk coming to believe that he’s dealing with murder, not suicide.