This novel takes place in San Francisco, California, in modern times. It follows a serial homicide investigation headed by Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer.

The reader first meets Boxer and her friend Jill, who works for the District Attorney, as they jog through the park. Together with Claire, the medical examiner, and Cindy, a reporter, the women make up the women's murder club that appears in several of James Patterson's novels.

In chapter two, Boxer witnesses an explosion that turns out to be an assassination on the owner of a major corporation with questionable business practices. Soon, other benefactors of American capitalism begin to die. Boxer works quickly with Joe Molinari, from Homeland Security, to uncover a plot to derail capitalism worldwide.

The motivation for the killings stems from a decades old case in which federal agents killed the brother of the Charles Danko. Danko has waited decades to pull of his catastrophic payback. His final target involves a bomb and assassination at the G-8 summit.

Molinari and Boxer travel up and down the west coast to uncover leads, eventually learning that Danko now teaches in Washington under another name. Boxer takes down Danko at the G-8 summit, and prevents the bomb from exploding. However, another "soldier" of Danko's succeeds in shooting the Vice president of the United States. Once taken into custody, the girl reveals Danko's whole plot. The vice president recovers, but Danko does not.

One subplot within the book involves Jill, who finally confesses her husband's pattern of abuse to Boxer and the other women. Jill comes through on a promise to her friends to kick him out, and the women congratulate Jill. Jill, however, becomes Danko's next victim, because her father helped to prosecute Danko's brother's fellow protesters.

Another subplot involves Boxer and Molinari. Romance quickly blossoms between the two agents. They spend one evening in bed together. In the end, though, Boxer almost lets Molinari leave without being honest about her feelings. In the final chapters of the novel, Boxer calls Molinari's jet back from the runway and asks him to consider a long-term relationship with her.