When a friend who was running a lucrative smuggling operation goes missing after selling a valuable cache of letters written by Fidel Castro, Doc Ford discovers that the letters may have contained a powerful secret.

A charter captain and guide named Tootsie Barlow has come to Doc Ford, muttering about a curse. The members of his extended family have suffered a bizarre series of attacks, and Barlow is convinced it has something to do with a multiple murder in 1925, in which his family had a shameful part.

Hired by a Palm Beach widow to prove that a historic, reputedly haunted house is too valuable to be razed for a condominium complex, Hannah Smith hopes the case will reveal facts about her Civil War ancestors--but it leads to her being targeted by an obsessed killer.

Entreated by his goddaughter to help pay off a blackmailer who videotaped her bachelorette party and then threatened to expose her debauchery, Doc Ford reluctantly agrees and then finds himself in danger when the extortionist releases the tape anyway, prompting a bridesmaid's suicide and a dangerous vengeance plot.