When Dana Hartman returns to Tazewell County after nearly twenty years in Chicago, he's fleeing a dead child, a broken marriage and an assault charge, determined to live out the rest of his life as a recluse. But when his brother is killed in the line of duty by a housewife-turned-methamphetamine addict, and he inherits the guardianship of his brother’s nine-year-old daughter, it’s time to step up to the plate. Tazewell County already has its own fair share of trouble: crystal meth, dead junkies, and the murdered daughter of prominent local businessman Wayne Trueblood. Dave Rassi, the dead sheriff's right-hand man, wants Dana in on the case. Yet Rassi seems to have his own agenda, and to make matters worse, the woman who killed Dana's brother has recanted her guilty plea: she says someone else pulled the trigger. And why is everyone Dana knows trying to warn him off the case?

Someone is torturing and killing the Chicago homeless. One a month, to be exact. The death toll is up to five, and the Chicago PD doesn’t have a clue. Dana Hartman is not a police officer. Not even remotely. Dana is a project manager for a criminal corporation, running numbers all day and watching his marriage run straight downhill. He does all of that before seven A.M. But when Dana is overheard talking about the killer at a bar in the Ukrainian village, the police believe he may be able to help solve the case.