They were five hard men, men who committed murder and kidnapping and robbery as a means of making a living: The Man, The Agent, The Driver, The Cleaner and the Wrangler. Each had a job in the kidnapping of heiress Christine Willock. The Man was the planner who'd put it all together, the one who gave orders to the others. The Agent was the all-purpose maker of mayhem, the go-to guy if someone needed to be beaten or killed. The Driver was the hot hand behind the wheel of a car. The Cleaner was the one who kept those pesky bits of evidence from being left behind for the police forensics team. And the Wrangler was the one who was in charge of making sure the kidnap victim stayed helpless and didn't make any escape attempts.As the Wrangler describes them: "the other kidnappers are hardened criminals, as law enforcement might say. When you say 'no' to such men, you have to have something strong -- some reason they understand and agree with, or a gun, or some equivalent to a gun. Otherwise they'll just do as they please and to hell with you."One of these men committed an act of betrayal that turned a lucrative little kidnapping into a fiasco that endangered them all. And the victim ... naked, bound and helpless ... finds that her life hangs by a slender thread, a thread held by ... the Wrangler. The Wrangler will spare no effort in seeing that Christine can't escape but ... can a hardened criminal do the right thing for all the wrong reasons? Find out in this return to the dark days of noir!This novel is set in the Basic Income/Morality Laws universe. The text of the story (not including the promotional materials at the back of the book) is over 25,000 words, according to the word counter in Open Office Writer.