In the blazing heat of an Atlanta summer, Special Agent Faith Mitchell of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation returns home to a nightmare. Expecting to find her mother minding her new baby daughter Emma, she is horrified to discover Emma locked in the shed, her mother's safe open and her gun missing and a bloody handprint on the front door frame.

Without waiting for back-up, she enters the house to a scene of carnage. It has been turned over and a man lies dead in a pool of blood. She discovers two others upstairs. Within minutes they have been shot dead. And when the Atlanta police force turns up, Faith has some difficult questions to answer. Why didn't she wait for back-up- Did she really kill them in self-defence- And what did the men want with her mother- Ex-Atlanta police chief, Evelyn Mitchell was once under investigation by Faith's partner Will Trent. Is she directly involved this time, and where is she- There is evidence she might have been tied up but what was she doing with a renowned drug baron - whose body has been found in the trunk of her car-

Suddenly things have become a whole lot more complicated for Will. He must go back to his previous, deeply unpopular case and unpick all the threads, risking the police force closing ranks on him to protect one of their own. And all the while he is conscious that his partner is right at the centre of it all, and he must tread very carefully indeed.