Charged with felony misconduct in a high-profile solicitation of murder case, Lieutenant Scully is forced to resign from the LAPD and to seek employment with the corrupt police department in a small suburb of Los Angeles. There he becomes ensnared in political blackmail, and his only hope of clearing his name and coming out alive lies with his estranged wife, Alexa, the LAPD chief of detectives.

The story of a family run by a tyrant. He is Dan Kane, a Los Angeles police detective who raises his four children as if they were police recruits and orders his wife, a cellist, to drop her job to care for the children. The novel looks at the pros and cons of such discipline, which in this case ends in tragedy.

A series of shootings exposes San Francisco to a methodical yet unpredictable killer, and a reluctant woman decides to put her trust in Sergeant Lindsay Boxer. The confidential informant's tip leads Lindsay to disturbing conclusions, including that something has gone horribly wrong inside the police department itself. The hunt for the killer lures Lindsay out of her jurisdiction, and gets inside her head in dangerous ways. She suffers unsettling medical...