Police psychologist Edwardo Bratenahl is a young widower, still mourning the tragic loss of his wife. Bratenahl, an academic and native of the insular Cleveland neighborhood of Little Italy, is asked to assist with the homicide investigation of world-class geneticist Dr. Simon Pederson, who was viciously slain during Sunday mass. Bratenahl is partnered with Mary Kate Calderon, veteran homicide detective. The two soon discover a related murder, which Calderon confesses looks eerily like a scenario she witnessed as a child in Nicaragua, with all the hallmarks of a Sandinista interrogator dubbed Diablo Rojo. Bratenahl brushes this off as coincidence, but the psychologist soon discovers just how perilous the world around him is, as he collides with the Red Devil, Simon Pederson's legacy of destruction, and the weight of family history in this twisty, dark police procedural.