Joe Ruddy (rhymes with bloody) was a former military policeman. New to the Dallas Police Department and even newer to the detective division, Joe found himself being assigned to all the shitty cases the veterans did not want to investigate. Joe was a self-conscious alcoholic who wrote songs and sang in bars and honky tonks. He did not consider himself a professional singer but enjoyed singing as a hobby. His hobby made Joe the prime candidate for reopening an old homicide case. While investigating the assassin style murder of a C&W singer who had been shot while performing on a Dallas stage, Joe finds himself uncovering leads in the hills of Kentucky and in Music City, USA. Wild dreams that he tries to ignore lead Joe to solving other murders and a kidnapping in Nashville. His wild hunches and un-orthodox investigative techniques allow Joe to discover clues that only his wild imagination could comprehend. When Joe becomes personally involved in the recording industry, lives with the beauty, glamour, jealousy and death in Nashville, he is inclined to suspect that there is more murder than music going on in the industry.