At the time the events in this novel unfold (Stansberry tells his story in a flashback to 10 years before), he's a good-looking and vain man of 37. Danser's clients are the criminally charged, either awaiting trial or in the process of being prosecuted. His present case is that of Matthew Dillard, a young man who is accused of strangling his wife, Angela Mori, to death. Danser is on his second marriage himself, this time to an older and wealthier woman named Elizabeth. He truly loves and is physically drawn to Elizabeth, but not enough to keep him from engaging in illicit affairs -- one of which was, coincidentally with the lately deceased Mori. It soon becomes apparent that Danser is not merely an unreliable narrator, but he is downright suspicious. It seems that dead women are littered throughout his past (his first wife drowned, for instance).