Defence attorney Mickey Haller has agreed to represent a woman who is in prison for killing her husband, a sheriff's deputy, and Haller enlists his half-brother, retired LAPD Detective Harry Bosch, as investigator. Even after five years in prison, his new client maintains her innocence.

Reviewing the case, Bosch sees something that doesn't add up and senses the sheriff's department close ranks as he pursues the truth.

The path to true justice is, for both the lawyer and his investigator, fraught with danger from those who don't want the case reopened. And their opponents will stop at nothing to keep the Haller-Bosch dream team from uncovering what the deputy's killing was really about.