While probing the murder of an elderly woman torched to death in her bed, Seattle homicide detective J.P. Beaumont finds himself distracted by the domestic problems of his new partner, Sue Danielson, until a series of terrifying events threatens to shatter their investigation.
An eyewitness to a fifty-year-old murder has just come forward, and Beau has been hand-picked to lead the investigation. While undergoing hypnotherapy, a middle-aged nun unexpectedly recalls the grisly details of a cold-blooded killing she witnessed when she was five years old. Though fear has kept these memories repressed for half a century, they've now risen to the surface to cast a harsh light on a deadly plot that spans two generations. And Beau's caught in the glare, facing a ruthless band of coconspirators willing to go to any lengths to keep their secrets hidden.
A five-year-old boy becomes J.P. Beaumont's only hope of clearing the name of his friend, Officer Ben Weston, when Weston's murder brings out accusations of the dead man's connection with Seattle's gangs.
When the corpses of a lusty school official and her security-guard lover are discovered in a school broom closet, and the prime suspect, Pete Kelsey, the woman's husband, proclaims his innocence, Detective J.P. Beaumont goes into action.
While accompanying his grandmother and her new husband to Alaska, J.P. Beaumont finds himself investigating the murder of a middle-aged divorc ee aboard a cruise ship, a crime in which the only witness is an Alzheimer's patient.
