The plot here is engorged with intense sections giving the bio-background of spy/agent/soldier of fortune Lucifer Dye but it's all fairly energetic. Dye, the product of an orphaned war childhood in China, whose wife was brutally murdered, smothered his sorrows by working for secret government agency ""Section II"" where he fell in with Orcutt Associates. The firm's purpose is to undercut civic corruption in corrupt ways. This Dye, along with an ex-cop and a beautiful girl and the boss-genius Orcutt, proceeds to do in the Gulf Coast town of Shankertown and while Orcutt is killed, the three take their fee and flee. Obviously, a lot happens all over the place.