Macduff Brooks wants to return to his earlier existence as Florida law professor Maxwell Hunt. Depressed after his wife El died in a terrifying boating accident on the Snake River in Wyoming, Hunt increasingly accepted "special work" for a federal agency. He was nearly killed in Guatemala and reported as having died of a stroke. He was placed in a federal protection program with a new identity as a fly fishing guide and a new home in Montana. But he cannot escape his Guatemalan assailants who doubt that he died. A client is killed on his drift boat and his cabin is rigged to be bombed, neither of which help a new relationship with a New York investment banker lady who owns a ranch next to his cabin.