A body found in a car trunk at first appears to be a routine murder to Pierce County Sheriff's Lieutenant Harlan Butler. As the murder investigation unfolds Butler finds himself mired in a bizarre and twisted plot by an international terrorist mastermind to blow up Seattle's Public Market. A further emotional complication for Butler is the discovery of the remains of his wife who has been missing for over twenty years. Thrown into the mix is the rape of an unidentified young woman who holds the solution to the bombing in Seattle and an insolent and arrogant FBI agent who withholds crucial information from Butler. A seemingly unrelated murder of a popular local waitress throws an additional glitch into Butler's investigations. Laurel Billings, newspaper reporter and Butler's lover, gives him the strength to deal with the chaos in his life as he struggles to solve these murders.