During an early morning jog, Atlanta attorney Tom Halloran discovers the body of his friend and colleague, Elliot Carter, hanging from a tree in Piedmont Park. Even worse, the private and dignified Carter is grotesquely dressed in women's clothes. Halloran is convinced that Elliot's death is murder, not a tragic accident of autoerotic asphyxia-gone-wrong. But the medical examiner's investigator, Hollis Joplin, is skeptical. He knows how difficult it would be to fake that kind of death, and he's seen too much in his years on the Atlanta streets to be surprised by what people are capable of doing-to themselves or others. Then two more people die, and the clues lead back to a twenty-year-old kidnapping. The under-staffed Atlanta PD can't give the case attention unless Carter's death is ruled a homicide, so Joplin, with an eidetic memory that allows him to recall in three dimensions everything he's seen, sets out to investigate it himself. Piece by piece, he and the relentless Halloran unravel a tale of greed, revenge, and family secrets-and put themselves right in the crosshairs of a calculating and ruthless killer.