Damon Ramp is a lousy yellow pages salesman going nowhere fast. But a fateful call on an odd little flower shop in St. Paul puts things in motion--in the opposite direction. Suddenly, the innocuous sales call has him swimming in the deep end with the feds. And the mob. Including some long-lost relatives who just want to say hello, but have a hard time playing nice. Along the way to finding his roots, Damon crosses paths with Hadji, a teenage extortionist who's trying to cash in on the nefarious goings-on at the flower shop, blackmailing the well-to-do men who patronize some of the seamier back-room offerings. And that's only the beginning. Drugs. Guns. An opium baron. Old-country hitmen. A wiseguy funeral. Welcome to the Hot State.