To save his beleaguered city, his career, his family and his very life, Patrick MacKenna must confront a ruthless saboteur and killer.

When architect and city planner Patrick MacKenna discovers the dead body of the city manager at his dream project site, within hours he's a murder suspect. He must help solve the crime to clear his name. His judgment is clouded by his inexplicable guilt over the death of his wife in an accident during a Christmas Eve ice storm, blinding him to the solution of the case. The murdered city manager was his staunchest advocate in the controversial new city-within-the city he planned and designed, in the protected floodplain of the Missouri River.

As attacks against the infrastructure increase, Patrick, a brilliant innovator with an eye for fine old things and beautiful women, must outwit the law and navigate a nether world of conniving colleagues, land speculators, newsmongers, venal politicians, bored bureaucrats and greedy contractors. A daunting prospect, considering his sworn mission to safeguard the public.

MacKenna enlists the help of Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Reiner and tough, sexy FBI Agent Bobbi Romano to scour St. Louis's underbelly and chase through Mexico and the Mississippi valley to run down the perpetrators and crack the case. He is aided by Meg Stewart, the developer's project manager, who must overcome her own troubled past to help solve the mystery and win his heart.

When Patrick suspects that the plot's masterminds are people he once trusted, he learns the greatest threat to the built infrastructure is not nature, but man himself.