When the body of famous actress Niki Francis is unearthed from its shallow grave, residents of Medford, Oregon are alarmed, but hope the murder is a singular crime. After all, there should be plenty of motives and suspects--Niki had fame, wealth, looks. The kill was targeted, premeditated, and it's about her celebrity. Or so they thought.

Whit McKenna is working as a crime reporter for the Medford Daily Chronicle. Fresh from a harrowing assignment for her previous post at the L. A. Times, which cost her husband his life, Whit must pull herself together for the sake of her two daughters. The heartache has hardly begun to heal when she's called to cover Niki's murder, so she teams up with her best friend, medical examiner Katie Riggs, working quid pro quo to solve the murder.

Two more victims turn up with the same grisly detail, Rather than clarity, the possible suspects and motives become scrambled. But time is running out, and each front page article McKenna writes brings her closer to a killer who will stop at nothing to realize a deadly vision.