This time the setting is Richmond, Virginia, and Patricia Cornwell takes us even closer to the personal and public lives of a big city police force where corruption, scandal and robberies escalate into murder. Police Chief Judy Hammer has been hired to clean up the crime rate. Reeling from the recent death of her husband, and resented by her staff and the city's establishment, she is joined by West and Brazil on the most difficult assignment of her career. In the face of overwhelming public scrutiny the trio must bring order and sanity to a city in trouble.