Despite a string of successful cases, despite the fact that his work has, on occasion, garnered national attention, private detective Moses Wine has finally been confronted by the one life-altering complication for which he had never been prepared: a mid-life crisis. Having just turned forty, he's worried about his future, he's upset because his girlfriend won't make a commitment, and he wants a steady job.
So, when the opportunity suddenly presents itself for Moses to become head of security at the Tulip Computer Corporation - a Silicon Valley-based company started by a brilliant young nerd known as "The Wiz" - the private eye jumps at the chance. With a new car, a new house, and a new girlfriend his life seems to be turning itself around.
But then one of Tulip's young geniuses is killed, and Moses quickly finds himself trailing a murderer from Northern California to Los Angeles, then across an ocean to the mean streets of Tokyo. Along the way, he discovers that there's far more to the ins and outs of life in Silicon Valley than corporate in-fighting and bureaucratic bungling - especially when it involves international computer theft, the Japanese mafia, and the GRU.
Suddenly turning forty doesn't seem quite so traumatic for Moses - not when there's every chance that he might not live long enough to see forty-one . . .
