Deal Breaker

The novel introduces Myron Bolitar, a relatively inexperienced sports agent who runs a small agency from a Park Avenue office with his college roommate and business partner, Windsor Horne Lockwood III ("Win"), a wealthy financial advisor whose patrician demeanor conceals formidable martial arts skills and a capacity for lethal violence. Myron's assistant, Esperanza Diaz, a former professional wrestler known as "Little Pocahontas," rounds out the operation.

Myron is negotiating a record-setting rookie contract with Otto Burke, owner of the NFL's Titans, for his star client, Christian Steele, a two-time Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback and by far the biggest client Myron has ever landed. The talks are interrupted when Christian calls with an urgent matter. At his campus dorm at Reston University, Christian shows Myron a pornographic magazine called Nips that arrived in his private mailbox. Inside a phone-sex advertisement is a photograph of his missing fiancée, Kathy Culver. Kathy vanished from campus eighteen months earlier; her torn panties, found on a Dumpster, were the only clue. The unmarked envelope came through campus mail, and Christian believes the handwriting resembles Kathy's.

A parallel crisis develops when two thugs warn Myron to stay away from Chaz Landreaux, a basketball player who has also signed with rival agent Roy O'Connor. The muscle behind O'Connor is Aaron, a dangerous enforcer from Myron's past, and O'Connor reveals that Frank Ache, the violent younger brother of mob boss Herman Ache, controls his agency and has placed a contract on Myron's life.

Meanwhile, Myron encounters Jessica Culver, Kathy's older sister, a novelist, and Myron's ex-girlfriend from whom he has been separated for four years. Jessica asks Myron to investigate their father's murder. Adam Culver, the Bergen County medical examiner, was killed three nights earlier in what police call a botched robbery, but Jessica suspects a connection to Kathy's disappearance. Myron agrees and eventually shares everything with Jessica: the magazine, a handwriting analysis confirming the envelope matches Kathy's writing, and mysterious phone calls Christian received that led, through a callback feature, to an answering machine with what sounds like Kathy's voice.

Myron and Win trace the magazine's publisher, Fred Nickler of Hot Desire Press, who reveals the ad was placed by a partner operating from a P.O. box in Hoboken. Myron and Jessica follow the man to Glen Rock, New Jersey, and identify him as Gary Grady, a married high school English teacher. Win discovers that Kathy's photo appears only in Nips, the lowest-circulation title; the same ad in all five other Hot Desire Press magazines features a different woman, meaning someone deliberately swapped one photograph in one obscure publication. From Kathy's student file, they learn Grady was her twelfth-grade teacher. Confronted at school, Grady admits to a sexual relationship with the underage Kathy but denies placing her photo in the ad.

Sheriff Jake Courter, who investigated Kathy's disappearance, shares key findings: Kathy left a sorority party after a phone call, was last seen entering the football team's locker room, and withdrew her entire $25,000 inheritance the day she vanished, leading Jake to believe she ran away. Jessica's brother Edward reveals that Kathy underwent a dramatic personality change during senior year, becoming sexually promiscuous and defiant. Their mother, Carol Culver, confesses the catalyst: Kathy walked in on Carol's six-year affair with Paul Duncan, a family friend and police lieutenant. The discovery shattered Kathy's faith in her strictly Catholic mother and triggered reckless behavior, during which Kathy sent provocative photographs of herself to Carol as punishment. Carol hid the photos in the attic, where Adam later found them.

Adam's discovery launched a private investigation. He enlisted Paul's help and tracked the photos to a pornographic studio, where Paul purchased all copies and negatives to protect Kathy's reputation. Adam eventually continued the investigation alone, returning to Nickler and arranging for Kathy's photo to be placed in Grady's ad in Nips. He hired an Atlantic City private investigator to mail copies to seven recipients connected to Kathy's life, accompanied by anonymous phone calls declaring, "Come and get me. I survived." Adam's goal was to make the killer believe Kathy was still alive and lure the culprit into the open.

Harrison Gordon, the dean of Reston University, confesses to Myron what happened the night Kathy disappeared. Kathy came to his house, sobbing, and told him she had been gang-raped by six or seven football players in the locker room. She had gone there to pay off Junior Horton, a blackmailing former teammate, but Horton's friends were waiting. Kathy told Gordon she wanted to press charges; Gordon discouraged her, worried about scandal and his career. She left, and he never saw her again. When Myron and Win track down Horton, he names all six rapists, including Ricky Lane, a current NFL running back and one of Myron's clients. Ricky admits he was present but claims he refused to participate. Afterward, he found Kathy on campus and gave her the torn panties as potential evidence. She was wearing blue clothes, not the yellow sweater later found on her body.

The clothing discrepancy proves decisive. Sally Li, Adam's assistant at the medical examiner's office, reveals that Adam ran unusual tests on an unidentified body found in the woods and kept the case to himself. Myron realizes what Adam concealed: The body was Kathy's. Adam recognized her but hid the identification to set his trap. Kathy wore a yellow varsity sweater and gray sweatpants when found, yet every witness saw her in blue that night. She never returned to her sorority house, meaning she changed at Christian's room, where she kept spare clothes.

Jake provides additional evidence. Nancy Serat, who spoke with Adam shortly before his death, was strangled with a wire the same night Jessica went to visit her. Forensic analysis confirms that hairs found in Nancy's hand belong to Kathy. Christian planted one of Kathy's hairs, taken from a hairbrush in his room, at the scene to frame a supposedly still-living Kathy. Christian killed Adam after Nancy innocently mentioned Adam's visit asking about the yellow sweater, alerting Christian that the investigation was closing in. He then killed Nancy to silence her.

At Adam's memorial service, Myron springs the trap Adam never lived to execute, publicly announcing that Kathy is alive and he will meet her that night in the woods. Jessica, Carol, and Edward are in on the plan. That evening, Jessica dons a blond wig at the designated spot. Christian arrives with a gun and confesses. When Kathy told him about her past, the photographs, and the rape, and asked him to stand beside her while she went public, he snapped. He saw his own mother, a former prostitute, in Kathy and could not accept what he considered a lie. He struck her, believed she was dead, and buried her in the woods. She died trying to claw her way out, buried alive. Win emerges from behind a tree, and police arrest Christian.

In the Landreaux subplot, Win exploits Herman Ache's obsession with golf by offering the mob boss rounds at two of the world's most exclusive courses. Herman orders Chaz's kidnapped family member released and cancels the contract on Myron's life. When Burke tries to leverage the magazine to lower Christian's contract, Myron outmaneuvers him with a hidden wire and forces Burke to sign the original record-setting deal.

In the aftermath, Gordon resigns, Grady's activities are reported to the school board, and the district attorney prepares to prosecute the rapists. Myron has lost both Christian and Ricky as clients. He drives Jessica to the airport for a book tour. They exchange declarations of love, Jessica promises to return, and Myron watches her disappear before driving back to the office alone.