Mason "Mace" Perry, having been incarcerated for two years and lost her badge for a crime she did not commit, is released from prison and determined to be reinstated, deciding the only way to do so is to solve a murder of a female lawyer, but evidence of secrets within the private and public world of the nation's capital threaten her chances of becoming a police officer again and her life.

"Years ago, a well-known expressionist painter named Jim Stegner shot a man in a bar. The man lived, Jim served his time, and he has learned to live with the dark impulses that sometimes overtake him. Jim enjoys a quiet life in the valleys of Colorado. He works with a lovely model, he doesn't drink, he goes fly fishing in the evenings. His paintings fetch excellent prices at a posh gallery in Santa Fe. He is--if he can admit it--almost happy. One...

"It's 1949. When war veteran Aloysius Archer is released from Carderock Prison, he is sent to Poca City on parole with a short list of do's and a much longer list of don'ts: do report regularly to his parole officer, don't go to bars, certainly don't drink alcohol, do get a job--and don't ever associate with loose women. The small town quickly proves more complicated and dangerous than Archer's years serving in the war or his time in jail. Within...

"Dismas Hardy knows something is amiss with his trusted secretary, Phyllis. Her out-of-character behavior and sudden disappearances concern Hardy, especially when he learns that her convict brother--a man who had served twenty-five years in prison for armed robbery and attempted murder--has just been released. Things take a shocking turn with Phyllis is suddenly arrested at work for allegedly being an accessory to the murder of Hector Valdez, a coyote...

Max Holman, just out of prison, hopes to be able to reconcile with his adult son, now a Los Angeles policeman, but his future freedom is threatened when he learns his son has been killed and he risks everything to find out what really happened.