Nathan Rizzo, a retired Pittsburgh Homicide Detective, recently widowed, needs something to get his life started again. He finds it in an offer to become the chief of police in a small town in Northcentral Pennsylvania. Expecting the job to be essentially stress-free, Rizzo and the small town of Braden, are shocked when eight months later they are faced with a string of brutal murders, all seemingly committed by the same person, yet without clues to connect them, and no evidence pointing to a suspect. The investigation leads Rizzo to the ten year old unsolved murder of a police officer in Twin Falls, Idaho. The key to the solution of the murders in Braden may have to be found in Idaho. A number of suspects begin to surface, none but one of whom would seem to have a sufficient motive for the extreme barbarism exercised in the Braden murders, and that person died in an auto accident years earlier. As Rizzo winds his way through the maze that blocks the identity of the killer, outside entities, including organized crime figures, influence and hinder the investigation. Coming through a trail of blood and old buried psychological scars, Rizzo's experience and focus are severely tested and upon the conclusion of the case leave him wondering if he should return to the calmer, less taxing job of a Pittsburgh Homicide Detective.