Murder is ugly, in the past or the present. When Robert Hanover died at the hands of his mistress, everyone grieved, but no one worried. But Jack Mercer, a former Texas Ranger turned private investigator, wasn't satisfied that the woman charged with the crime was the murderer. The case brought him up against the past, not only Hanover's, but his own. In addition, Jack was forced to consider a variety of suspects, one of them the woman he hadn't seen for nine years. What was the meaning of friendship? Just how far would a friend go to help? Could love hide a variety of sins, one of them murder? All questions Jack Mercer has to find the answers for, before an innocent woman is convicted of a murder she didn't commit.