Investigators are stymied. Young women are murdered, all punctuated by a Gypsy investigation and an unlikely romance between a young reporter and the chief investigator. Both continue to do their jobs while navigating the ethical conflicts that the cases create between them. For her, reporting is not all murder and mayhem. Nights in the newsroom can be boring or spiced with excitement. Days can be spent researching or covering service club speeches. One such speech on juvenile crime and its solutions ends in an interview and a brush-off, with the reporter declaring her interest in Detective Embry. For him, the unsolved homicides aren't the only crimes that envelop the community, and stakeouts provide plenty of fantasy for one detective who becomes a suspect in the organized-crime murder of a city councilman. Despite best efforts, the women's killer is not discovered. Years later, history repeats after a strange encounter, and now retired Detective Embry and wife become volunteers, reliving old cases during an epidemic of new crimes more brutal than before. Their grandson, Derek, still a high school student, lends technical assistance to the effort. Underlying the horror of the crimes is a developing belief by one local minister that rehabilitation is possible. He ultimately establishes a prison program, which includes a mass murderer. The question becomes whether the hard heart of a convicted killer can be pierced and the person redeemed.
