Winston Garano

A Massachusetts state investigator is called home from Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is completing a course at the National Forensic Academy. His boss is planning to run for governor, and as a showcase she's planning to use a new crime initiative called At Risk; its motto: "Any crime, any time." In particular, she's been looking for a way to employ cutting-edge DNA technology, and she thinks she's found the perfect subject in an unsolved 20-year-old murder-in Tennessee.

Moving between the chill of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the sultry humidity of Knoxville, Tennessee, Winston Garano, a police investigator, is instructed to look into a 20-year-old murder case. Although Win reckons there are many more pressing current cases which should have higher priority, he gets on with the task, unaware of the can of worms he will prise open.

Massachusetts State Investigator Win Garano is given one of his most challenging cases yet when he is asked to investigate the death of a young British woman murdered more than 40 years ago. It will take him on a journey through the archives, into the latest innovations in forensic technology, and into partnership with senior officers at London's New Scotland Yard.

In The Front, D.A. Lamont has a special job for Massachusetts state investigator Win Garano. As part of a new public relations campaign about the dangers of declining neighborhoods, she's sending him to Watertown to "come up with a drama," and she thinks she knows just the case that will serve. Garano is very skeptical, because he knows that Watertown is also the home base for a loose association of municipal police departments called the Front, set up in order that they don't have to be so dependent on the state....