She had started hearing the owls last winter. First, she had found their call to be somewhat charming and mysterious, picturing the solemn, wise-faced birds sitting on branches somewhere nearby. But when they didn’t leave, and seemed to make the farm their roost, she feared their mournful plaint was some kind of ominous warning. As the wife of a midnight-shift patrolman, Cheney Manning is used to sleepless nights. And, as a public defender, with dozens of jury trials under her belt, she is accustomed to anticipating bad news. So, when two police officers appear at her door after midnight, Cheney knows something must have happened to her husband. She is Dan was shot and killed in the line of duty. But even her litigator instincts have not prepared her for what is revealed next. When Cheney’s former client, eighteen-year-old Solomon Wilson, is charged with the first-degree murder of her husband, Cheney undertakes her own dangerous and reckless investigation in order to unravel the truth about what really happened on the night her husband was killed.