When a vibrant young woman is found in bed by her hotshot businessman
husband, carved from belly to throat with a very sharp knife, the elite
Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD responds in full force. Best-case
scenario for lead Detective Lena Gamble: Nikki Brant's husband killed
her, case closed, and on to the next crime scene before the ravenous
Hollywood media can get their lurid tabloid machinery up and running.
Unfortunately for Lena, though, she knows that best-case scenarios only
happen in the movies. The murder is the first in a series of brutal
crimes against beautiful women thought to be perpetrated by the same
man, a killer dubbed Romeo in the press. It's the case of a lifetime,
and promises to either elevate Lena to the upper echelons of a
publicity-hungry department in need of heroes, or bring about a very
public and painful fall from grace. Lena has been in the public eye
before, on the night her rock-star brother was gunned down on a dark
street in Hollywood--an unsolved murder so grisly she's never recovered.
She knows the score when the press and the LAPD collide.
As the investigation plays out and a massive forest fire blankets the
city with acrid smoke, a cloud of conspiracy descends on Lena's
investigation, and she knows she'll have to grind this one out...because
Nikki Brant's death just breathed new life into more than one closed
case...because the web of conspiracy is spun more intricately than she
can possibly imagine...and because Lena knows there's only one
rock-solid rule to murder in L.A.: The bigger the spectacle, the deeper
the horror.
