It is 1990 when Melvina Donleavy arrives in Soviet Belarus on her first undercover mission with the CIA. To the prying eyes of the KGB, she is merely a secretary; to her CIA minders, she is the only one who can stop the flow of nuclear weapons from the crumbling Soviet Union into the Middle East. For Mel has a secret: she is a “super recognizer,” someone who never forgets a face. But no training could prepare her for the reality of life undercover, and for the streets of Minsk, where women have been disappearing. Soviet law enforcement is firm: murder is a capitalist disease. But could a serial killer be at work? As Mel searches for answers, she catches the eye of an entirely different kind of threat: the elusive and petrifying “Black Wolf,” head of the KGB.

Detective Betty Rhyzyk has settled into a happy marriage and has been promoted to Sergeant in the Dallas Police Department. But when a hostage stand-off puts her on the phone with legendary cartel leader The Knife, things take a turn. The Knife has heard that Evangeline Roy is making a play for the streets of Dallas. The matriarch of a ruthless cult, Evangeline also happens to hold a personal vendetta against Betty. Betty has two weeks to catch her. Or else. With Betty’s young charge Mary Grace already missing --- having left her seven-month-old baby behind in Betty’s care --- and the drug dealers of Dallas donning strange red wigs and delivering cryptic messages, Betty is in a race for answers.

Betty Rhyzyk’s wounds are still fresh from an encounter with an apocalyptic cult known as The Family. She's back at work as a narcotics detective, but something isn't right --- at work, where someone has been assassinating confidential informants, or at home, where she struggles to connect with her loving wife, Jackie. To make matters worse, Betty's partner seems to be increasingly dependent on the prescription painkillers he was prescribed for the injuries he sustained rescuing her. Betty decides to go rogue, investigating her own department and chasing down phantom sightings of the cult leader who took her hostage. The chase will lead her to the dark heart of a drug cartel terrorizing Dallas, and straight to the crooked cops who plan to profit from it all.

Dallas, Texas is not for the faint of heart. Good thing for Betty Rhyzyk she's from a family of take-no-prisoners Brooklyn police detectives. But her Big Apple wisdom will only get her so far when she relocates to The Big D, where Mexican drug cartels and cult leaders, deadbeat skells and society wives all battle for sunbaked turf. Betty is as tough as the best of them, but she's deeply shaken when her first investigation goes sideways. Battling a group of unruly subordinates, a persistent stalker, a formidable criminal organization and an unsupportive girlfriend, the unbreakable Detective Betty Rhyzyk may be reaching her limit.

After escaping the Texas brothel where she had been a virtual prisoner, Lucinda Carter heads for Middle Bayou to meet her lover, who has a plan to make them both rich, chasing rumors of a pirate's buried treasure. Meanwhile, Nate Cannon is on the hunt for a ruthless killer named McGill who has claimed the lives of men, women and even children across the frontier. Who --- if anyone --- will survive when their paths finally cross?

Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.