On the run from some sore poker losers, gambler Lucas Stanton ducks into an office housing the Great West Detective Agency –followed by a client who mistakes him for a sleuth. Amanda Baldridge lives in one of Denver’s more well-to-do neighborhoods, and someone has snatched Tovarich, her Russian wolfhound puppy.

Unable to resolve this case of mistaken identity–and unwilling to refuse the up-front cash from such a lovely patron–Lucas agrees to find the purloined pooch. But what he believes to be easy earnings for an absurd request becomes a riskier proposition when Lucas finds himself in the crosshairs of the wealthy and powerful Jubal Dunbar, who has already set his sights on Colorado’s governorship–and on the missing mongrel…