Stephanie Plum, laid off from her job as a lingerie buyer for a Newark department store, applies for a filing job with her cousin Vinnie, a bail bondsman. Vinnie's assistant, Connie, tells her the job is taken, but suggests she works as a bounty hunter, apprehending clients who have failed to appear for their court dates. Stephanie is excited to learn that Joe Morelli, a Trenton vice cop and onetime sexual acquaintance of hers, is FTA and facing charges for murder one. Vinnie initially refuses to give her a job, but Morelli's bounty is $50,000, which Stephanie desperately needs, so she blackmails Vinnie into employing her, by threatening to expose his "addiction to kinky sex" to his unsuspecting wife.