Rosalie Curzon, a Washington, D.C., call girl, is found bludgeoned to death in her Adams-Morgan apartment. Investigating the grisly homicide are Walt Hatcher, a tough, sour, intolerant twenty-three-year veteran of the D.C. police department; Detective Mary Hall, who, unhappy with the way women are treated on the force, is conflicted about her career; and rookie cop Matthew Jackson, an introspective young man and the product of a mixed-race marriage, whom Hatcher looks down on.The murder scene is in a disturbing state of disarray, suggesting that Rosalie had fought to the bitter end. Then Hall discovers a video camera nestled high on a bookshelf. Had the victim taped some of her clients during their sexual liaisons? As the investigation proceeds, so does business inside the Beltway. President Burton Pyle is running for reelection. His opponent, consummate politician Robert Colgate, is expected to easily defeat Pyle, whose administration has been rife with corruption and scandal. Colgate, though, is not without cracks in his slick exterior. Rumors swirl about his failing marriage and various dalliances. Moreover, there's no love lost between the two candidates: The campaign has morphed into one of the most distasteful and nasty in memory.Then, on a bright Saturday afternoon on the Washington Mall, the daughter of Colgate's closest friend is kidnapped. The abduction rocks the nation's capital, but no one is prepared for the bombshell about to hit the city, an explosive development that erupts when Detectives Hall and Jackson uncover a shocking connection between the kidnapping and the Curzon case and a killer whom no one will see coming.