Shane Notfarg, an experienced Afro-American female detective in the San Diego County sheriff’s office, is assigned the case of missing man Arthur Flynn in late 2008. She dislikes cases involving missing persons because they turn up alive later 90 percent of the time, a loss of investigative resources. Flynn disappeared from a fishing camp at the Russian River in northern California.
Shane puzzles initially over whether Flynn took off to avoid paying alimony to his gorgeous ex-wife, now living with a wealthy man. Then Shane discovers Flynn had taken $10,000 to the fishing camp. She wonders why he was carrying such a large amount of money to the camp. Did somebody murder him for that cash?
The issue becomes more serious when Flynn’s car is found stripped in Compton, and forensics determines it had contained a dead body with Flynn’s DNA. Shane suspects a pair of fellow campers who live near Compton but cannot figure out how they accomplished the murder, since they drove from the camp the day after Flynn’s car left. Shane’s attention turns to another pair of campers who tried to disguise their identities.
It takes Shane seven years to find out what happened to Flynn. Her investigation uncovers a huge money-laundering operation about which Flynn had written to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Her investigation uncovers forgery, thieving, and murder while touching on social issues - the seizure of assets without conviction and racial matters in a white male dominated environment. The ultimate culprit of this criminality will surprise you.