Not a man to dwell on the past, Stone Barrington has no choice but to rattle old skeletons when the people closest to him start dying, and he has little to go on but the suspicion that the killer might be someone he once knew. The trip down memory lane isn't all bad though, for it reunites Stone with his ex-partner, Dino Bacchetti, now head of detectives in the nineteenth precinct.

Trying to find a brilliant killer in a sea of old faces is difficult enough without Stone's former love, Arrington, now Mrs. Vance Calder, resurfacing too—especially when she sets off her own fireworks coming nose to nose with his latest flame, a Mafia princess as beautiful as she is dangerous.

Caught on a thrill ride of a case that tests him as none has ever done before, Stone races to find a twisted madman with a taste for blood vengeance, with only a prayer to find him before Stone's worst fears are realized.

Stone Barrington thought he'd heard the last of former girlfriend Arrington after she left him to marry Vance Calder, Hollywood's hottest star. The last thing Stone expected was a desperate call from Calder. Arrington has vanished, and her new fiancé wants Stone to come to LA and find her.

In a town where the sharks drive Bentleys and no one can be trusted, Stone soon discovers he's drowning in a sea of empty clues that takes him from Bel Air to Malibu to Rodeo Drive. Running out of time and leads, he needs to keep his head above water and find Arrington fast, or end up swimming with the fishes himself.

Stone Barrington only wants a winter getaway from the chill of New York in the beautiful, tropical Caribbean paradise of St. Mark's. But what the lawyer and ex-cop gets instead is the chance to defend Allison Manning. The beautiful young woman stands accused of killing her rich husband on board their luxurious yacht and then burying him at sea.

Stone isn't exactly conversant with the island country's law, but this much is clear to him: Allison is being railroaded by the perverse sense of justice of a prosecutor who will do anything to stay in office. Donning the robe and wig of a British barrister, Stone does everything he can to save Allison—from publicizing the case all over the American press to conducting the kind of smart, tough investigation that money can't buy. Just when he has the jury in the palm of his hands, a shocking reversal of fortune changes everything. And what was once a sure thing begins to look a lot like a death sentence.