When his closest ally, Hawk, is brutally injured and left for dead, Spenser embarks on an epic journey ro rehabilitate his friend in body and spirit.

They were the Sheridan men, ruled by passion, betrayed by love, heirs to a legacy of violence and forbidden desire. Gus, Boston's top homicide cop: he knew equally well the backroom politics of City Hall and the private passions of the very rich, a man haunted by the wanton courage and perilous obsessions he inherited from his father... Conn, the patriarch, a lawless cop who spawned a circle of vengeance and betrayal that would span half a century......

Police chief Jesse Stone, dealing with a junior high school principal who conducted a surprise inspection of female students' underwear before a dance, investigates the crimes of a peeping Tom who breaks into the homes of his victims and forces them to strip at gunpoint.

What initially appears to be a low-level mob hit takes on new meaning when a high-ranking crime figure is found dead on Paradise Beach. Jesse Stone and private investigator Sunny Randall team up to solve two cases involving the gunshot murder of Petrov Ognowski and a religious cult holding an 18-year-old girl against her will.