When the law clerk for the chief justice of Kentucky's Supreme Court dies in a mysterious hit-and-run, tongues begin to wag. After all, everyone knew about the justice's penchant for young women, and this one was as beautiful as she was smart. Concerned that her death could be linked directly to him, Chief Justice Langford appeals to Hilary Adams, now Louisville's Commonwealth's Attorney, to keep him informed about any new developments that may crop up in the ensuing investigation. But when Hilary refuses, Langford angrily elects to pursue another route—one that effectively circumvents Hilary's office, but one that ultimately leads to the chief justice himself falling victim to murder.Though the details of Langford's demise are shocking, his murder neither surprises nor displeases anyone, least of all his widow, who has more than a few wicked secrets of her own. But instead of ensuring long life, those sins, which she so carefully tried to conceal, ultimately prove to be the death of her too.Faced with mounting pressure to solve the murders of both the chief justice and his wife—and to determine whether their murders had anything to do with the untimely death of the justice's law clerk—Hilary, Homicide Lieutenant Peter Elliott, and investigator Sam Monroe unwittingly find themselves plunged into a complicated and twisted plot that, when unraveled, exposes an insatiable lust for uncompromising greed, a double whammy of double-crossing deceit, and a diabolical scheme of deadly blackmail, all carefully intertwined to advance a political agenda that has become cruelly out of control.