It's spring in Oregon's wine country, and small-town lawyer Cal Claxton is looking forward to watching his beloved Red Hills bloom with the promise of a bountiful grape harvest. But the arrival of an unexpected visitor forces him to revisit painful events from his previous life in Los Angeles. He feels compelled to return to the City of Angels to make up for a terrible injustice that caused an innocent man to spend thirteen years in prison. Cal's return also brings back dark memories of his wife's suicide, a tragedy that triggered his escape to Oregon and a new life.

The cold case, involving the murder of a beautiful young woman, quickly becomes one of the most dangerous and baffling of his storied career. Once a chief prosecutor for the city of L.A.-a go-to person for tough criminal cases-he now finds himself alone, forced to operate with nothing but his wits in a city that is even meaner and less forgiving than when he left it. He soon discovers that the case is not what it seems and finds himself pitted against an array of suspects who will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden. When Cal rekindles relationships with some of his former law enforcement colleagues, he finds they, too, have secrets to hide.

When Cal uncovers a shocking fact about the case, a series of events is set in motion that culminates, not only in resolution of the cold case but in something far deeper and more significant for the lawyer from Oregon.

"The Cal Claxton mysteries are well plotted with believable, multidimensional characters. They are so good and compelling I plowed through all nine in the past three or four months, in the order in which they were written." -Richard Meeker, Willamette Week