When greed for money, sex, and puritan self-righteousness meet, murder is on the agenda.
In the university town of Middleton, Drew Bresson was a successful investment advisor. When he is murdered in the church where he prayed daily, at first, it seems a cut-and-dried case of robbery gone wrong. But then Bresson's journal reveals a self-righteous judgmental puritan whose accusations of financial and sexual misconduct and threats of retribution may have given the targets of his wrath motives for murder.
The main suspects are Bresson's unfaithful wife, and three who he had threatened with prison or disgrace by revealing their misdeeds: two investment analysts accused of cheating their clients and a powerful construction company CEO accused of major safety code violations and bribing public officials. Each of the three also had a personal grudge against Bresson, including a former lover, insultingly discarded by Bresson, and a man Bresson had publicly humiliated with charges of sexual perversion.
Chief of homicide Detective Peter Guthrie and anarchistic profiler Steve Garvin combine dogged police work and psychological insight in their quest to identify the killer.