Butch Karp is not working for the City of New York anymore. Instead he's fighting City Hall. New York's chief medical examiner, Murray Selig, has been summarily fired without due cause, and Butch Karp, now in private practice, is suing the city for all this case of administrative malfeasance is worth. His wife, Marlene Ciampi, is out of law enforcement as well. But she is doing more than keeping house and raising their young daughter. With street-savvy ex-cop Harry Bello, she has opened a private detective agency specializing in protecting threatened women from abusive men. Their career paths seem miles apart. But questions arise that bring them ever closer together. What is the secret that two terrified children from Central America refuse to divulge? Why have murders of Guatemalan cab drivers by bent cops remained uninvestigated? Who is responsible for the brutal beating of Marlene's close friend, freewheeling investigative reporter Ariadne Stupenagel, when she comes too close to exposing dirty secrets of the NYPD?