Harper Ketch has a deliciously sleazy system for picking up girls, eliciting their sympathy via the old "dead wife" routine. His scant requirements: a complete lack of shame, and a couple of basic props - his pre-divorce wedding ring, and a picture of the tragic young wife in question. Never mind that the latter is just an old photograph of a complete stranger that he fished out of the trash. Except...someone does mind - the girl in that photograph. She's onto him, and before long he'll wish he'd never met Samantha Martin, and never heard of The Philip Phenomenon .