A mild-mannered arborist, Brian Westlake, is killed while walking his dog in Portland's vast urban wilderness, Forest Park. The police think it was a simple robbery gone bad, but have turned up no real leads. The dead man's brother hires PI Rick Conwright to learn why Brian died and who murdered him. Rick discovers a former Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms agent has suddenly vanished, leaving a happy marriage and a successful second career behind. Rick believes the two cases could be linked. His fast-moving investigation takes him from the Arizona desert to the San Francisco Bay Area as he starts to connect the dots. But all is not quite as it seems. Rick must return to Portland and solve the murder of a college coed eight years earlier to identify and apprehend Brian's killer.