Once Mickey Magruder was a cop with a wild streak. And Kinsey Millhone was a younger cop who adored and married him. Then Mickey was implicated in a fatal beating and Kinsey walked out. Now fourteen years later she comes face-to-face with those tragic years and Mickeys harrowing downward spiral after he lost the job he loved--and the marriage he loved a little less.

Mickey lies dying in an L.A. hospital. Trying to find out how Mickey got there Kinsey uncovers evidence that he was innocent of the beating charge. But as she searches through the lives that swirled around Mickeys--lives gone wrong and lives gone well--Kinsey must also search the blind spots of her own life including one that hides a killer.