Someone is killing the young girls of River Oaks. He chooses them carefully, prizing golden blond hair that shimmers like the bright yellow sunflowers dotting the small Midwestern town. He taunts his pursuers by leaving sunflower seeds or blooms at each crime scene. But now the killer's hunger is growing more rapacious -- the interval between victims becomes shorter with each life he takes. As the town prepares for its annual sunflower festival, the police are running out of time.

Multiple murder was the last thing Lieutenant Sheila Brady expected when she left the Milwaukee P.D. for a quieter town. So was fearing for the life of her young daughter. As a lethal deadline draws near, Sheila is determined to find the killer's weakness and bring him down. But he is about to cast aside the rules of his own game, and set an ingenious trap using Sheila's daughter as a pawn. Now Sheila must use all of her instincts as a detective...and a mother.