Boldt plays jazz piano one night a week in a local bar, and despite his concern for his hands, he takes every opportunity he can to get away from his desk and into the streets. But money pressures, caused by his wife's recent illness, also make him think about the possibility of a better paying job in the private sector. Meanwhile, some extremely ruthless people are murdering illegal Chinese immigrant women and leaving their bodies buried in newly dug graves. An ambitious local TV journalist named Stevie McNeal and the young Chinese woman she thinks of as her 'Little Sister' risk their lives to investigate the killings, while Boldt and his team round up a most unusual array of suspects. This combination of hard edged realism and softer sentiment has become Pearson's trademark, and once again it works smoothly.