When Undersecretary of State Elliott Talbitzer comes home to Oregon to squire his mother through the last months of a terminal illness, his best friend, Lee Crane, is charged with the murder of their sworn enemy. Can Talbitzer handle his mother's decline while keeping his lifelong friend out of prison? Talbitzer and Crane plunge into the maelstrom surrounding the murder. Who reached out and killed this man, or did Crane coldly and brutally murder him? And as they race to solve the crime against the deadline of the trial, they confront ghosts from their own pasts which may have deadly consequences to both of them...