It is New Year's Eve, 1952 in Los Angeles. Private Investigator, Aloysius Archer, is dining with his friend and rising Hollywood star, Liberty Callahan, when they're approached by Eleanor Lamb, a famous screenwriter, who would like to hire him as she suspects someone is trying to kill her. A visit to Lamb's Malibu residence leaves Archer in no doubt of foul play when he's knocked unconscious entering the property, there's a dead body in the hallway...

Now the incomparable team of psychologist Alex Delaware and homicide cop Milo Sturgis embark on their most dangerous excursion yet, into the dark places where risk runs high and blood runs cold. It's a story tailor-made for the nightly news: Dylan Meserve and Michaela Brand, young lovers and fellow acting students, vanish on the way home from a rehearsal. Three days later, the two of them are found in the remote mountains of Malibu, battered and terrified...

In 1980s Hollywood, the beautiful star of a hit TV cop show is being sent strange letters. At first, Sarah Broughton dismisses the letters as the ramblings of a lonely fan. But when the letters take on a disturbing tone and Sarah discovers a body in the sand outside her Malibu beach house, the experts are brought in. Working as a detective in the LAPD Threat Management Unit, Arvo Hughes has seen it all before: stalkers, love obsessionals, erotomaniacs...