Captain Josie Corsino has selected Kyle Richards, a trusted and talented sergeant, to supervise a burglary task force in Hollywood division. While working that special detail, Richards is involved in a fatal shooting. He’s reluctant to be candid about his relationship with the man he killed, and that leads not only to uncovering his mysterious past but exposing Josie’s division to notoriety and a fiery assault.

As detectives investigate the shooting, Josie’s loyalty to her sergeant is second-guessed by her bureau chief, civil rights activists, and even a few of her police officers. Was the shooting justified, or did Sergeant Richards have another reason for killing the unlikely burglary suspect? Before that question can be answered, there’s a brutal murder in Hollywood in which Richards appears to be the most likely suspect. Josie wants to support her sergeant but finds herself questioning his actions and his motives.

Josie joins forces with Detective Red Behan and Lieutenant Marge Bailey to help solve the murder and determine if there is a link between the man Richards shot and the homicide victim. The trail leads from a boxing gym in east Los Angeles to LAPD’s office of the chief of police and finally back to Hollywood, where Josie discovers corrupt cops thriving within her police station.

At home, Josie is becoming impatient and distant with her husband and her son, who continue to make demands on her time. She also finds herself drawn to Sergeant Richards, creating even greater domestic turmoil.

Narcotics Detective Josie Corsino thrives in this decadent world chasing drug dealers, destroying crack houses, and raiding opium dens until the early morning hours. Her desire to do this consuming job makes family life nearly impossible. Her husband and son need her, and she needs to be on the street. The detectives in her squad don’t fit the spit and polish image of the Adam 12 LAPD. They’re grubby, unshaven, disrespectful to authority, and generally do police work in an effective, if not by-the-book way. She’s comfortable balancing on the edge of legality to make a good arrest until one night an informant tells her and her partner that a Hollywood cop has stepped over the line and is selling rock cocaine. In Josie’s mind there’s nothing worse than dirty cops. She learns the hard way that they can be vicious, clever, and determined to do anything–including murder–to avoid capture.

The search to find the traitor in blue nearly kills her best friend and puts Josie in the middle of a drug war involving an organized crime family. Finding the corrupt cop is the only way she and her partner can salvage their reputations and keep the killer from striking again.

Life becomes more complicated than usual for LAPD Captain Josie Corsino after she chairs a disciplinary board that recommends firing a five-year police officer with a poor performance record and a history of irrational behavior. During his board of rights, the officer swears vengeance against her and anyone he believes is responsible for ruining his life and career.

When one of the board members, a prominent gay civil rights attorney, is shot to death outside a Hollywood gay bar, another board member ambushed, and Josie’s home firebombed, the obvious suspect is the unstable officer, and he soon becomes the target of an intense manhunt causing havoc and fear among those who knew him.

At the same time, Josie and her homicide supervisor Red Behan are trying to find a serial killer in Hollywood who is targeting young gay men. One of his victims is a police commissioner’s brother, so there’s department pressure to solve that case and political pressure to unravel the mystery of the slain attorney.

Behan is Josie’s best detective, but he’s retiring in less than a week, which increases the pressure on her to quickly and successfully conclude both investigations. Adding to her stress is the realization that she is once again in love but knows her job is toxic for married life.

It’s only after her team finally captures their serial killer that everything falls into place and she knows the truth.