A series of frightening murders plagues San Francisco. To solve the crimes, Homicide Inspector Clemson Yao enlists the help of Angie Strachan, a Realtor who once tried—and failed—to become the city’s first female homicide inspector. The two face off against a ghoulish, black-humored serial killer who whimsically refers to his grotesque murders as "messies." Gripped by macabre obsession for a decade, he’s evolved into a grandmaster of slow, anguished death, roaming the globe to catalog the most despicable methods of execution and keeping his research in dozens of leather-bound notebooks. Clem and Angie slowly unravel the murderer’s clues, but their quarry is always one step ahead of them and even an FBI profiler can’t help them pin down the twisted mind behind the crimes.
