No longer able to race, Halley was hired as an operative by a well-known private security/investigative firm called Hunt Radnor Associates, and is working there as "Odds Against" opens. Still pitying himself over the loss of the profession he loved, and the loss of a wife he loved but couldn't get along with, he does not work very hard at being a detective, but a case involving unexplained accidents at a venerable racetrack awakens his interest, and, when he brings the case to a successful conclusion, he discovers he might be as good an investigator as he was a jockey. But at a cost.