Overlords of K Street

the long version

"All Joel Wilson had ever wanted was to be a newspaper man. And after years of struggling in various small-town Minnesota papers he'd made it all the way to the New York Herald. But after years of budget and staff cuts and nothing but a depressing future on the horizon for the newspaper business, Wilson had taken a buyout. He'd moved to Costa Rica looking for a new life. A little seaside town, a Costa Rican girlfriend, and a relaxed, inconsequential existance [sic] had given life a sweeter smell. Soon the world he'd once covered for the Herald, the world of political corruption and power-mongering, came calling in the form of an old friend with awful news: His ex-wife, a U.S. attorney, has gone missing. The police, thinking her dead, have all but called off their inquiries. Joel and his old newspaper friends do not give up so easily. Their search uncovers a web of corruption that leads from a plot of land in St. Augustine, Florida, all the way to the hallowed halls of Washington, D.C."--Page 4 of cover.