As the bitter weather of late fall descends on Minneapolis, Detective Nikki Liska is restless, already bored with her new assignment to the cold case squad. She misses the rush of pulling an all-nighter and the sense of urgency of hunting a killer on the loose. Most of all she misses her old partner, Sam Kovac. Kovac is having an even harder time adjusting to Liska’s absence but is distracted from his troubles by an especially brutal double homicide: a prominent university professor and his wife, bludgeoned and hacked to death in their home with a ceremonial Japanese samurai sword. Liska’s case—the unsolved murder of a decorated sex crimes detective—is less of a distraction: Twenty-five years later, there is little hope for finding the killer who got away. Meanwhile, Minneapolis resident Evi Burke has a life she only dreamed of as a kid in and out of foster care: a beautiful home, a loving family, a fulfilling job. But a danger from her past is stalking her idyllic present, bent on destroying the perfect life she was never meant to have. As the trails of two crimes a quarter of a century apart twist and cross, Kovac and Liska race to find answers before a killer strikes again.


進入晚秋，明尼阿波利斯的天氣變得惡劣不堪，探員妮姬‧莉絲卡顯得焦躁難安，已經厭倦了在新單位懸案調查小組的工作，且開始想念起以前徹夜追查案件的日子和追捕殺人犯的緊張時刻，她最想念的還是她的老搭檔山姆．科瓦奇。但科瓦奇卻更難以適應沒有莉絲卡的日子，一樁殘忍的凶殺案分散了他對莉絲卡的想念：一所著名大學的教授與他的妻子在家中遭人用武士刀活活砍打而死。莉絲卡經手是一起懸案——一位破獲許多性犯罪案件而獲獎無數的探員遭到謀殺，但莉絲卡仍無法轉移她對老搭檔的想念。二十五年後，追查仍在逃的兇手似乎出現了曙光。住在明尼阿波利斯的艾薇‧柏克小時候在不同的寄養家庭來來去去，現在她過著從小夢寐以求的的生活：美麗的家園、溫馨的家庭、理想的工作，但她過去的陰影正一步步逼近，準備摧毀她以前不敢奢望的恬靜、完美生活。當這兩起相隔二十五年的案件曲折交錯時，科瓦奇和莉絲卡必須在兇手再次犯案前，設法將他們緝捕歸案。