After getting canned from the Seattle PD, brilliant, wisecracking Thomas Prescott follows his sister Lacey to Philadelphia, where she swims on the Drexel College swim team. While Thomas's slapstick antics mask a keen analytic mind, it's his nose for trouble that leads him again and again into dicey situations. The ex-detective is not long in Philly before getting caught up in not one but two high-powered criminal cases. Thomas stumbles into a crime scene amid the Occupy Philadelphia protests. Activist Brooke Wexley has been strangled within sight of City Hall. While demonstrating against economic inequality, the college student hid her own family's wealthy background. The uber-rich Wexleys have many dark secrets, it turns out-one of which may have led to Brooke's violent death. Thomas is also called to join an emergency multi-agency task force on the trail of a prolific serial killer who leaves gruesome calling cards: a number carved on each one of his many victims. It's when Thomas realizes these “Number Murders” tell a story that his investigation shifts into high gear. The trail jumps back to the past before rushing back to the present like a tsunami of fire, bent on revenge. Amid all this, Lacey has a health scare, and Thomas's priorities shift. Encountering gambling church ladies, felonious businessmen, and murderous mobsters-with an investigation hampered by a competitive colleague and Lacey's narcoleptic bulldog-Thomas must summon all of his considerable powers to root out the guilty and dangerous while caring for his adored sister.
