"Ghost? Hobo? Even Superman? You wouldn't think of anything else. Always, you had to be a policeman."

Roughly a month after going head-to-head with the copycat killer who had singled Detective Reed Mattox and his K-9 partner Billie out in an attempt to capitalize on their recent success, the duo is still reeling. Faced with uncertainty over where they are and what they are doing for the first time since partnering together years before, they retreat home to Oklahoma for the holidays to regroup.

A vacation that is at once cathartic and therapeutic, right up until the moment Columbus Police Chief Eleanor Brandt calls informing them they are needed back in Ohio for a case.

Judge Warren Steele has been a fixture in the Dayton legal community for almost thirty years. Fast approaching his seventieth birthday and the final days of his tenure on the bench, he is murdered outside of his home, his body left dressed up as a snowman on the front lawn of the very courthouse he has presided over for the past three decades.

A brutal public display that is only the beginning as Reed and Billie are pressed back into action. Forced to unravel secrets in the city going back years, their hunt takes them through the local police departments, churches, courthouses, and even universities, all in the name of deciphering the motivation of their newest target.

"Sometimes all you need is to be reminded why you fell in love with something in the first place..."