Local politics gets nasty when Rosewood, Georgia, elects a new mayor, and the honorable Spence Jefferies makes it his first order of business to replace Diane Fallon with an incompetent crony as head of the crime lab. But just as Diane is adjusting to life without murder, a double whammy hits - Within a twenty-four-hour period, the newly appointed chief of police and the mayor himself are shot dead.