Gabe Treloar, a former Los Angeles cop, is on his way to a new job in Ohio when he gets sidetracked into his midwestern hometown of Monticello. After almost thirty years, much of the town is altered, though money and power still rest in the same hands. Gabe rents a room in his childhood home, and there he finds a kindred spirit in his landlady, Edna Tutt. But when Edna is hideously murdered, Gabe is determined to uncover the town's dark secrets and to bring her vicious killers to justice - even if he is a major suspect...