The image of the young woman stumbling along a dark, winding road is one true-crime writer Molly Blume cannot shake. It draws her to a bedside in intensive care, where, before dying, the victim whispers three names: Robbie, Max, and Nina. It's not a smoking gun, but it is sufficient enough to reinforce Molly's gut instinct that there are sinister circumstances behind the assault on Lenore Saunders.

With fearless conviction, Molly asks questions that nobody - including Lenore's mom, her ex-husband, her shrink, or even Molly's LAPD buddy, Detective Connors - wants to answer. Nevertheless, the astute Molly discovers Lenore lived a fractured life, so different from Molly's own secure and loving Orthodox Jewish background. And as a chilling picture of the unfortunate woman begins to take shape, the menace of murders past and present stirs and quickens.