The main character is a Nashville songwriter and amateur detective named Ray August. Ray's curiosity is aroused when he is introduced to a new songwriter named Lou Wade from California. Ray feels that he has met the man from somewhere before. The name and the face were different, but the eyes were something that no one could forget. Later on that week Ray keeps hearing how this new songwriter, Lou Wade, is pressuring people in the industry to record his songs. Ray had heard that in California, Lou Wade had had number one hits in the Rock field. While at home, Ray is going through an old photo album and he happens to be looking at a picture of a band that he worked with at a club in St Louis. Written below the picture of a man in the photo is the name "Butterfly Man". He remembers that was the name the girls use to call the manager of the club. When Ray looked a little closer at his eyes, he realized that Butterfly Man and Lou Wade were one in the same. Lou looked completely different now and Ray wondered why he would be going by another name. He decides to make a few phone calls to St. Louis to learn more. What Ray uncovers causes him to fly to California to find out more about what Lou Wade is hiding from his publisher. While Ray is in California, he makes friends with a girl that works where Lou Wade hangs out. When he begins to ask questions about Lou Wade events begin to happen to Ray and his new friend. He soon finds that Lou Wade is involved in the drug seen there. Ray's interest in Lou Wade causes him and his friend to be violently harassed on his return trip back to Nashville, by way of St. Louis. In St. Louis, they discover what Lou Wade has really been hiding. Kidnapping, arson and attempted murder become action events that bring this story to an exciting and unexpected climax.
