A woman of unspecified age lives with her husband and daughter in an unspecified city in America’s Pacific Northwest. Raised by an unwell mother and abusive grandfather, along with an older brother (since deceased), she now works as a security protocol analyst for an anonymous technology company.

These personal details are hard-won from Jane Smith, the protagonist of Hummingbird Salamander, who is loath to divulge identifiers that double as vulnerabilities. In a confessional style, Jane narrates her unexpected journey, upon receiving a piece of hummingbird taxidermy, from the realm of nine-to-five conformity to undertaking a one-woman investigation