Vermont homicide detective Joe Gunther takes on a disturbing case of spousal abuse, police corruption and murder in his latest outing. Asked to conduct a minor Internal Affairs investigation in Bellows Falls, Gunther has to work quickly to separate fact from fiction--but nothing he's heard will prepare him for what he's about to see. \nJoe Gunther is seconded to the neighboring town of Bellows Falls to investigate harassment allegations against a fellow officer. What begins as a seemingly open-and-shut case comes to look more and more like a frame job as Gunther doggedly pursues the truth, and soon he finds himself feeling around the edges of a statewide drug distribution network. As always, Vermont itself is a major character in Mayor's writing, with Bellows Falls standing in for any number of slowly decaying once-proud mill towns.