San Francisco Private Investigator John Marshall Tanner and Lieutenant Charley Sleet of the San Francisco police department are good friends. Best friends, even. They don't just run in the same professional circles, they also play poker on a regular basis. Tanner and Charley know each other real well and Tanner knows Charley's a good guy.
Now imagine Tanner's surprise and confusion when Charley goes crazy one day in a courtroom and guns down another cop and a defendant charged with child molestation. Imagine the horror Tanner experiences when Charley kills yet again while in jail, slaying a fellow inmate. And imagine the difficult position Tanner is put in when it is discovered that Charley convinced an old colleague to let him walk out the door of the jail.
Now Tanner's pal Charley has become a vigilante of sorts, and before he's stopped, more will die. Charley might be his best friend, but now it's up to Tanner to track him down and end his killing spree.
Tanner's search leads him to places and people from Charley's past, back to the time when Charley's beloved wife Flora was still alive. Maybe somewhere there, in the tragic story of their marriage, waits the answer to Charley's strange and violent transformation from good cop to cold killer. Or perhaps the answer to the puzzle rests with the bewildered 12-year-old child whom Charley befriended. Or with the stepdaughter of the accused abuser Charley killed in court.
