One evening in 1962, a man stands on the Vancouver Bridge, waves to a passing car and climbs on the railing. His body is never recovered. The man is Richard Setman, a minor poet and college professor. In 1985, the poet Mady Dabner teaches at the same college where Richard Setman had been on the faculty. Things are not going well-it is a confusing postmodern era. Furthermore, every poet who teaches at her college is dwarfed by the immensity of Richard Setman, who has become legendary since his disappearance over 20 years before. In 1985, from the perspective of somebody watching through the keyhole, Sara-Jane Stein is doing well. She'd moved away from Portland shortly after her father's disappearance, and has become a success; a featured sports columnist for the Denver Journal.

She has also reconnected with Mady Dabner, her childhood friend. But Sara-Jane also has a secret-a year after Richard Setman disappeared, she woke up to find her father standing over her. In 1985, Bart Coldecker-cut-rate shamus, ambivalent genius, former wrestler, wearer of leisure suits (they were his dad's)-sits in his one-room office. A beautiful woman walks in. He immediately recognizes her as Sara-Jane Stein, the sports columnist. Her request is odd. Two nights and a long afternoon drive later, Coldecker is in love. On their last night together, Sara-Jane asks the shamus, "What would you do if you were the last person in the world?" "I'd pour a Jack Daniels and toast the lost paradise," Coldecker tells her.

"And then I'd roam the ends of the earth to look for you." The next morning his old college girlfriend, Mady Dabner, calls him in a panic from Portland. When Coldecker returns to Denver, he discovers Sara-Jane's strangled body in his bed. The Shamus's Guide for the Perplexed is a literary suspense novel about love, friendship, betrayal, the mutable nature of identity, and the quest for paradise.