Setting up a private detective agency is easy, getting it to operate properly is not. The radical response to a stalker by one of his colleagues is bad enough, but his technology expert stretches the boundaries of legality so far it would sink the business if word got out.
Which makes it difficult to win the approval of DS Anastasia Cook, something he needs to do for business reasons, but increasingly wants to for other reasons as well.
With film conventions, psychics, incendiary devices and electronic sleights of hand, who could blame him for feeling autumn leaves were falling and winter was just round the corner.
Following on from Interleaved Lives, A Habit of Mind is the second title in the Douglas Hunter series.