An artist is murdered, in a stylish, surprising and deadly act of performance art, at a gallery opening. The murder almost goes unnoticed, but it reminds maverick detective Kathy Mallory of an older, much more brutal crime - a double homicide and dismemberment originally investigated twelve years before by Mallory's now dead adoptive father.
As soon as Mallory starts to work on the new crime, old ghosts rise up, and the word comes down from on high to close her down, to shut her out of the case.
But for Mallory, rules exist only to be shattered at will . . .
