Lincoln Blackthorne, reluctant Rambo, very private investigator, and adventurer in spite of himself, returns for a fourth thrilling caper.

"Why, " Blackthorne wonders, "does everyone seem to know what I'm going to do, or where I'm going to be, before I do?" The reason is simple: People manipulate him, giving him no choice. In fact, the only one who hasn't succeeded yet is Carmel—she wants Linc to marry her. He might be better off.
Instead, he finds himself ducking a knife in a room in the Waldorf as he begins the search for the Fangs of the Hooded Demon, a relic of supposedly wondrous powers, which has been smuggled into the United States by Dutch Burgoyne.

The fangs are carved rubies which were once part of a statue of a white cobra. The artifact once belonged to Vlad Tepes. According to the legend, the jewels are capable of bringing the dead back to life.

Lincoln Blackthorne doesn't believe in legends like that; but there's no questioning the fact that the hunt for the fangs is capable of killing people. That's why, finally, he escapes the snowbound East Coast and finds himself stuck in a blizzard in Oklahoma...with people who knew where he was going to be before he got there.

Why didn't he just marry Carmel? Would he, he wanted to know, live long enough to change his mind about that? And who had the fangs now, anyway?