Private investigator Ben Ames is supposed to be on vacation. He's followed his rock star boyfriend, Jesse, to the Edmonton Folk Festival, where Jess is doing an acoustic set with friends and having a boozy sulk about his changing image.

Neither is there to solve a crime, but they're offered a case anyway, when the festival headliner hires them to help his author friend Charlie.

Charlie's latest manuscript is missing. A normal guy would have backups, but Charlie's an internet-hating conspiracy theorist who saved his work to a laptop flash drive, and now the drive and the computer are gone. Ben thinks the case is impossible, but Jess could use a distraction, so they pay a visit to Charlie's river valley home-where Charlie tells them he knows who took the book, he's not telling, and a detective can't help. Good day.

They're still in Edmonton, enjoying a lazy summer day, when word comes that Charlie's been murdered. Back on the case and without suspects or a motive, Ben knows the answers are in that missing book. He just needs to do the impossible and find it....