Jonas Piedmont Beaumont has had a hard life and learned at a young age how hard life can be. Two marriages, a treacherous battle with the bottle, assorted midlife and moral dilemmas, and a few decades as a homicide detective haven't convinced him otherwise. When Beau and his new partner Sue Danielson are assigned the murder of an elderly woman torched to death in her bed, Beau finds himself distracted by Sue's difficulties at home.

Sheriff Joanna Brady seeks an elusive and chillingly brutal killer whose crimes run deep into the past in the next New York Times best seller from the author of Partner in Crime.  

The hardworking single mother of young daughter, Joanna Brady still feels the acute pain of loneliness and loss, the hole that was left in her heart when her policeman husband was murdered. But Sheriff Brady is the law in Cochise County, and murder has shattered the small town's fragile peace. A local gun dealer has died violently, and his stock of high-powered weapons has been cleared out. When two more slayings follow soon after, suspicion falls upon rancher Alton Hosfield.

The end of her high-profile broadcasting career came too soon for TV journalist Alison Reynolds - bounced off the air by executives who wanted a "younger face". With a divorce from her cheating husband of 10 years also pending, there is nothing keeping her in L.A. any longer.

Lurking in the dark corners of J. P. Beaumont's bizarre case was not just a demented mind obsessed with murder, but secrets so deadly that even a street-tough cop could die guessing.