A defense attorney hires Buck to clear his client for murdering the boss that fired him,even though the evidence is stacked againt the client. Buck untangles a web of greed, corruption and lies.

• Marisela Ruiz-Pascal, the agency’s attorney, gets Buck to work for a man who has been accused of murdering the boss who fired him.

• The bloody beheading (both literal and figurative) was committed with a katana, a Japanese Samurai sword.

• This case has Buck or his operatives traveling to Atlanta, to San Francisco, around South Florida and looking into martial arts training.

• Our attorney Marisela Ruiz-Pascual had sent another lawyer to us.  She had called me the day before and said in her booming, ebullient way, “Buck, listen, a colleague, a defense attorney, you may have heard of him, M. J. Watterstein, is in a predicament and asked me to recommend a detective. I recommended you. You can help him, can’t you? ‘Cause I would consider it a personal favor.  Besides, it’ll pay well.  What do you say? Can I send him over?”
• “What’s the case about?”
• “Murder.  His client is a defendant in a murder, and the evidence against him is very strong, but he won’t plead guilty.  What about it?  Buck?”

• a. The act or fact of severing; the state of being severed; separation.
• d. Discharge from contractual employment.—Oxford English Dictionary (online)
• I wrote Severance after I had been laid off from Assurant Group and had been given a nice severance package, so you can see from whence came the inspiration.
• A member of the company’s management team bought a copy of the book, probably to see if I had libeled the company, but I hadn’t.  It was a good company to work for.