Tennis bad boy Ziko Slade is serving 20 years for the grisly murder of small-time criminal Lenny Lerman. The facts of the case --- and Slade’s checkered past --- seem indisputable. What begins as a cursory review of the case as a favor to Dave Gurney’s wife’s friend soon spirals into something much more complicated. When Gurney’s involvement threatens to expose a viper’s nest of corruption, he finds himself framed for murder and pursued by a sensational media, a ruthless district attorney and a coldblooded killer. As he evades the law and attempts to solve the case to salvage his reputation, Gurney grapples with the realization that his unshakable need for police work is costing him more than the brilliant detective ever suspected.

The idyllic community of Larchfield is rocked to its core when Angus Russell, its wealthiest and most powerful citizen, is found dead in his mansion on Harrow Hill. A preliminary analysis of DNA gathered at the crime scene points to the guilt of local bad boy Billy Tate. However, Tate fell from the roof of a local church and was declared dead by the medical examiner the day before Russell was killed. When police rush to the mortuary, they discover that Tate's coffin has been broken open from the inside, and the body is gone. A series of murders soon follows as Larchfield loses its collective mind. Ex-NYPD detective Dave Gurney finds himself not only facing down a murderer, but struggling to restore order to the town rapidly spiraling out of control.

Tensions have been running high in White River as it approaches the anniversary of a fatal shooting of a black motorist by a local police officer. In the midst of the turmoil, a White River police officer is shot dead by an unknown sniper, and local authorities approach Dave Gurney to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting. More killings occur in what appears to be an escalating sequence of retaliations. But when Gurney questions the true nature of all this bloodshed, his involvement is suddenly terminated. Despite intense opposition from the police, as well as from dangerous fanatics lurking in the shadows, he begins to uncover an astonishing structure of deception.

Former NYPD star homicide detective Dave Gurney is called upon to solve a baffling puzzle: Four people who live in different parts of the country and who seem to have little in common report having had the same dream --- a terrifying nightmare involving a bloody dagger with a carved wolf’s head on the handle. All four are subsequently found with their wrists cut  --- apparent suicides --- and the weapon used in each case was a wolf’s head dagger. Troubled by odd holes in the official approach to the case, Gurney begins his own investigation --- an action that puts him in the crosshairs of not only an icy murderer and the local police but the darkest corner of the federal government.

Dave Gurney is once again pulled out of retirement when his former partner asks him to help prove that a murder victim’s wife has been framed. As Gurney investigates, twisted revelations come to light, and his actions put him on a collision course with a murderous cop and a Greek assassin known as Peter Pan. Gurney discovers that he may be risking everything for a woman who may not be innocent, and the truth is more shocking than anyone could have imagined.

Ingenious puzzle solver Dave Gurney puts under the magnifying glass a notorious serial murder case --- one whose motives have been enshrined as law-enforcement dogma --- and discovers that everyone has it wrong.

The facts of what has just occurred are horrible: a blushing bride, newly wed to an eminent psychiatrist and just minutes from hearing her congratulatory toast, is found decapitated. Though investigators believe that a Mexican gardener killed her in a fit of jealous fury, the victim's mother is having none of it. Reluctantly drawn in, Dave Gurney is quickly buffeted by a series of revelations that transform the bizarrely monstrous into the monstrously bizarre.