When a famous, avante garde photographer is found murdered and handcuffed to the steering wheel of a crashed car, Detectives Goren and Eames probe the victim's controversial works and his tortured past -- but they make a grisly discovery that a dead model had been used at the site of a former photo shoot. When other similarly pretty women are found missing, the investigators suspect that the secretive artist was exploiting them to gain an ugly new perspective for his lagging career until Goren studies the artwork and arrives on a new theory.

Detectives Goren and Eames stumble upon an American tragedy when they trace the slaying of a jewelry thief whose mysterious young female partner is being manipulated by Nicole Wallace -- Goren's murderous and chameleon-like adversary from his past. As the detective carefully interviews his lethal but elusive nemesis, Goren discovers a chilling trail of betrayed victims that exceeds his worst memories as a New York cop.