Matt Sinclair

When a teenager from a wealthy suburb outside Oakland is dumped at an inner city bus stop, homicide detective Matt Sinclair catches the case. It's his first since being bumped to desk duty for a bust that went south - fast. With few leads and plenty of attention, it's the worst kind of case to help him get back up to speed. And it only gets worse as the bodies start to pile up - first at the same bus bench, then around the city. Sinclair is unable to link the victims to each other, and the killer is just getting started.

Cops in Oakland seldom meet people whose lives are going well. That's certainly the case when homicide sergeant Matt Sinclair recognizes the dead woman hanging from a tree as a teenage runaway named Dawn he arrested 10 years before. And as Sinclair and his partner, Cathy Braddock, soon learn, many of Dawn's clients, not to mention the local and federal officials who protect them, will go to any length to keep the police from digging too deep into her past.