When an army officer is found dead in the small Virginia town of Hopewell, it sets in motion a sequence of events that will forever change the life of Sheriff A. G. Farrell. A. G.'s investigation is hampered from the start by a strangely hostile provost marshal from the murdered captain's base, and by the captain's enigmatic widow, Theresa Fitzgerald, whose beauty, like the terrible heatwave, leaves civilians and soldiers alike gasping for relief. When a thin thread ties together the otherwise unsuspicious deaths of four young women over the past four years, A. G. struggles to retain his sense of objectivity and propriety as sexual tension grows between Theresa and himself, and he must face down the provost marshal whose rush to judgment may get the wrong man hung for murder.

As in his two previous novels, which critics compared favorably to the work of such authors as Tim O'Brien, John Sanford, Patricia Cornwell, and James Lee Burke, Miller has created a lead character, Sheriff A. G. Farrell, whose intelligence, independence, and whimsical nature will captivate even the most discriminating and demanding readers.