When Emma Floyd, the best-selling mystery novelist, can’t find a plot for her latest book, she turns to her friend, who shares the gossip about an unidentified corpse. The coroner is performing an autopsy on the woman and shares some details about the case. The woman might be a long-missing victim of a local strangler. She goes to the library to find research material, only to find another mystery in where the bound books have gone. However, the story doesn’t stop at the page for Emma. She meets an expert on the strangler, but a mysterious force makes three separate attacks on her and those involved in the case. As the clues start to come together about the mysterious corpse, Emma finds her life in danger and wonders if she’ll be alive to finish the book based on this case.

When Emma Floyd, the well-known mystery writer, begins to look into the unidentified victims of the strangler, she learns some hard truths. She learns that her family is tangentially involved, and she worries about the impact of her investigation on those who are her nearest and dearest. Hoping to keep the investigation at arm’s length from her family, starts to look into the missing leatherbound editions of the articles regarding the strangler. She quickly uncovers an unpleasant truth, one that the police should have easily uncovered. Her investigation leads her to learn the name of one of the victims and to question the identity of another. The twists and turns come fast as she tries to learn the truth, but at the same time, an unhappy killer feels she’s getting too close.