Hollywood columnist Meredith Ogden's home and life with L.A. Special Cases Detective T.K. Raymond and their three-year-old is uprooted when he investigates a decades-old murder of a young starlet whose desiccated body is discovered in California's high desert. In her purse is a crumbling note bearing Raymond's and another man's name. Investigating the murder, and how his name is connected, Raymond travels take him from the wind-swept desert to vintage Hollywood, and into his own disturbing past. Meredith, herself, is suddenly faced with upheavals with the media bosses she serves, and the family's stability is further threatened as she digs into murder charges against a close filmland friend.