Investigating a long-unsolved murder when a witness uncovers blocked memories, Special Homicide Investigation Team member J.P. Beaumont infiltrates a band of powerful conspirators who will go to any lengths to hide the truth.
Struggling to solve a series of murders in which young women were wrapped in tarps and set on fire, a breakthrough in the case sends Seattle investigator J.P. Beaumont to Sheriff Joanna Brady's jurisdiction in Arizona as the sheriff works on her own puzzling case.
When the governor of the state of Washington asks him to investigate a snuff film found on her grandson's phone, J.P. Beaumont, no stranger to human depravity, is shocked by this horrific crime and discovers that this murder has much wider implications.
Cutting himself loose from the Seattle police force, semi-retirement takes Beau on a cruise, where the ex-wife of on-board conference speaker Dr. Harrison Featherman disappears.