It is an eighteen-year-old cold case, and Kinsey Millhone is intrigued. The victim was a "Jane Doe," an unidentified white female whose decomposed body was found near a quarry off California's Highway 1. Her wounds were brutal - she was multiply stabbed and her throat cut, her wrists bound with a length of wire. But the Santa Teresa County detectives had little to go on, and abandoned the case after a few months. Now, old and ill, they want Kinsey Millhone to identify her, just to bring closure to the case and rest to their minds. But revisiting the past can be a dangerous business, and what begins with the pursuit of Jane Doe's real identity ends in a high-risk hunt for her killer.