Ace shortstop Pepper Dalton has finally learned to hit—or soit seems to the good people of Salt Lake City. Moroni Traveler, a private eyenamed for an angel and cut from the same cloth as his hell-bent father, is hiredto prove that Pepper did not kill his sister with a baseball bat. A boyhoodhero of Moroni’s, Pepper is living, potbellied proof that the past, likeeverything else, just ain’t what it used to be.

While the Mormons use computers and private security men tokeep tabs in their town, and Moroni’s former girlfriend pulls a paternity suiton Moroni’s father, the case of the ex-shortstop and his murdered sister isgrowing more sinister all the time. With a religious fanatic, a slick churchlawyer, and an old ballplayer’s lifelong dream involved, Moroni knows this is astory about how the road to glory is paved with blood.