Sandeen is putting himself at risk again. He wasn't looking for a mystery to solve, but fate handed him one. Master Sergeant Alvin Templeton disappeared one fine day in 1977, and the Air Force considered him a deserter. Now, after more than thirty years have passed, Bob Templeton-Sergeant Al's son-has talked Sandeen into looking into the disappearance of his father. In doing so, Sandeen will dig into a Cold War nest of snakes and deception that involves espionage, seduction, and murder and uncover old secrets that some will do anything to keep hidden. Keeping focused on Templeton's disappearance while people with a grudge from an earlier case are looking for revenge of a permanent kind and a lady cop from Wyoming keeps showing up at inconvenient times will keep Sandeen busy as he tries to solve a new mystery and at the same time, stay alive.

Kristina Bonner was the girl every girl in her high school wanted to be. Tall, slim, auburn-haired, a straight-A student, and the daughter of a wealthy and powerful man, Kristina drove her father's rare and classic Continental Mark II to her senior prom, and then disappeared. Twenty-six years later-after he'd spent and wasted a fortune on private investigations-John Bonner turns to a writer and espresso-shop owner for help. Sandeen is an investigator without a badge or a gun, but a great track record. He will rely, instead, on the powers of the First Amendment to give him both freedom and access to the truth of Kristina's disappearance. Sandeen makes the journey to the epicenter of the mystery, the small town of Catalpa, Kansas. There, he begins to uncover secrets buried for a quarter-century-secrets fiercely and violently protected by those who perpetrated a horrible crime and then hid the evidence in an unmarked grave.