Detective Lena Adams lies injured in a run-down Georgia town hospital, the only suspect in a horrific murder that left a woman incinerated beyond recognition. A hundred miles away, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver receives the call that his young detective has been arrested. Jeffrey?s wife, paediatrician and medical examiner Sara Linton, has little patience for Lena. Fighting a heartbreaking malpractice suit, struggling to pick up the pieces of a shattered career, Sara cannot guess that within days she herself will be at the centre of the bizarre and murderous case. While Jeffrey thought that Lena was on vacation, she had instead returned to the place where she grew up hard, careening back through the shadows of her past and into a shocking underground world of bigotry and rage ? and murder. Now, the man who raised Lena is slowly killing himself with drugs. And the man who beguiled ? and beat ? her is reaching out from prison to snare her. Finally, only Jeffrey and Sara can free Lena from the web of lies, betrayal and brutality that has trapped her?
