For fans of Robert Parker's smart but tough-as-nails heroes, screenwriter Stephen Carpenter introduces a new character to the mystery genre, Jack Rhodes. Jack is an author and former boxer who was on his way to literary success when his life was blown apart by the horrific suicide of his fiancee.

Devastated, Jack went on a fifteen-month alcoholic spiral into near oblivion before eventually working past his demons to become a best-selling crime novelist. But just as Jack is finishing his fourth book about a vicious serial killer, the LAPD interrupts his quiet routine with news of what appears to be a copycat murder from his first book. There's just one problem - the murder took place before Jack's book was published.

Jack begins to investigate, using techniques he learned through his meticulous research with police and FBI investigators. To his horror, Jack soon discovers that each of the murders he imagined are real...down to the most harrowing details. And Jack is Suspect Number One...

Jack winds up on the run, a fugitive haunted by his past and hunted by the very cops and FBI agents he has befriended. Jack must use every resource he has to prevent the murder of a woman he knows will be next in his series of novels. He must piece together shattered memories from the fragments he recalls during his drunken fifteen-month blackout.