Anthony C. Mottola, "A.C." to his friends, is discovered murdered in the rubble of his burned-out music store. Rooke Limestone County Sheriff Deputy Hal Blaine is assigned to the case. He is aided in the search for answers by the county's medical examiner, Judee Sill.The case quickly cools with no motive or suspects. Then Judee meets Interpol Inspector Dutronc at an international forensic conference in San Antonio. There, the case takes a sharp turn as Dutronc can tie A.C.'s murder to a series of unsolved murders throughout Europe. As Blaine and Sill move closer to solving the murder, Sill is poisoned. making the tenacious deputy determined to exact just for Mottola and Sill. As the pair work to solve the murder, they become more than colleagues.