Grofield has a knack for attracting damsels in distress. Even holed up in a Mexico City hotel room (with thousands in cash and a bullet wound) they manage to find him. When Ellen Marie Fitzgerald comes in through his window, she tells a tale that he promptly dismisses. And just as promptly reconsiders when a couple of hoods come looking for her. The damsel leads Grofield on a chase across Mexico, running the gauntlet on the one heavily guarded road to Acapulco in hopes of preventing a political assassination. It's a desperately chivalrous gamble for the gallant part-time actor-cum-thief. "An unconventionally but effectively constructed novel, ranging from the hardest-boiled action-objectivity to character-introspection in depth." (New York Times Book Review)