Should  a celebrity biographer dip his pen in gall like a muckraker?   Or is he forced to print the legend of a man whose radio fans still regard him as Saint Nick?  That's the dilemma facing Paul Doyle in 1980.
   The setting is Chicago and the story traces the life of man who has been beset with all the foibles that plague real men.  And that's the story Paul Doyle thinks he was hired to write.  Then he is told to whitewash Nick's past.  There's a dark secret that would ruin the lives of some prominent Windy City socialites, if the truth ever came out.
   Undaunted, Paul sets out to paint the whole picture, but along the way he discovers a clue that can reopen a cold case.  He never bought the yarn that pretty Rita Caldwell had runaway in 1959, vanishing without a trace.  The two stories seem unrelated at first.  But, as they converge, the pace picks up and Paul's life gets threatened.  This no fairy tale that ends happily, but there is a surprise ending that even surprises Paul.