At 1:15 a.m, a Minnesota political fixer answers his doorbell. The next thing he knows, he's waking up on the floor of a moving car, lying on a plastic sheet, his body wet with blood. When the car stops, a voice says, "Hey, I think he's breathing," and another voice says, "Yeah? Give me the bat." And that's the last thing he ever knows. Lucas Davenport is investigating another case when the trail leads to the man's disappearance, then--very troublingly--to...

When the brutal killing of a family in a small Minnesota town reveals unsettling similarities to drug-retribution crimes, baffled police officer Lucas Davenport is shocked by findings that lead him into the darkest case of his career.

When his adopted daughter's friend reports that someone has been killing off a circle of nomadic panhandlers, Lucas travels to North Dakota, where he encounters a dangerously violent subculture.

Terrified by her goth-associated daughter's disappearance and the signs of a deadly struggle in their home, a widow implores Lucas Davenport to use his connections to local authorities to expedite the investigation, which subsequently reveals the work of a serial killer.

When Vladimir Orslov, a man with ties to the highest levels of government, is found shot dead on the shore of Lake Superior, Lucas Davenport must take on the local cops, the FBI, and the Russians as he attempts to unravel the case.

Hoping to use a supposedly straightforward case of murder to clear his mind, Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport finds himself matching wits with an ever-escalating serial killer, art history professor, congenial pervert, and sexual predator James Qatar.

The killer is mad, but brilliant. He leaves rules with every woman he killed. He has so many rules to his sick, violent games of death. But Lucas Davenport, the cop on the case, isn't playing by the rules.