A war is underway between the U.S. Bureau for Price Regulation (BPR) and the all-powerful National Association of Industrialists (NAI). The first victim is Chenney Boon, head of the BPR. He is killed just minutes before his speech at the NAI conference. The NAI hires Wolfe to find the murderer, hoping that public outrage will be aimed not at the menacing “sharks of capital,” but at a specific killer. Yet right on the doorstep of the detective’s house, another murder occurs. This time the victim is the murdered Boon’s secretary, Phoebe Ganter. Archie flirts with the dead man’s niece, the beautiful Nina Boon. Kremer is removed from his position, and Wolfe fights his successor. And all of it is because a missing tape recorder reel that Boon recorded just a few hours before his death…