Daryl Zero is an enigma. In his personal life, he is a paranoid, anti-social recluse whose sole interaction is with his business associate. In his professional life, he is the most famous and best private investigator in the world who can command any fee he desires. His anti-social behavior extends to his work, which means that all his transactions are conducted through his exasperated representative and sole field agent, former lawyer Steve Arlo, who often wonders if it is worth working for who he considers a total freak for the price of his sanity. Zero can often solve his cases from the comfort of his own home using his extraordinary powers of deduction - which he attributes to two associated "obs": objectivity and observation - but when he is required to do field work, he always does so incognito, he convincingly assuming whatever role required. His latest client is Portland based timber baron Gregory Stark, who is being blackmailed ($700,000 which Stark has thus far paid out, with no end in sight to the payments), with the blackmailer also having stolen a key to Stark's safety deposit box. Stark refuses to disclose the nature of the supposed dirt the blackmailer has on him, or the contents of the safety deposit box, which he states has no bearing on the case. Arlo believes Zero is required to go to Portland himself to work on this case. Zero quickly finds out who the blackmailer is - a paramedic named Gloria Sullivan - but wants to find out the reason for the blackmail before Arlo divulges the information to Stark. In the process of finding out the reason, which takes a little longer than usual just because he is finding it difficult to read Gloria's motivations, Zero begins to lose one of his obs for the first time and brings into question if Stark or Gloria is the true victim. It also threatens to turn Zero into somewhat of a normal human being.