[4] While moving into her new office, Kinsey Millhone receives a visit from Lt. Con Dolan of the Santa Teresa Sheriff’s Department.

Oliphant is haunted by a cold case from 1969, a murder investigation wherein he and Dolan discovered the body of a teenage Jane Doe in a quarry outside Lompoc.

After Kinsey pursues a couple of false leads, Dolan and Oliphant suggest focusing their investigation on a career criminal named Frankie Miracle, who was arrested in Lompoc within days of the Doe murder for killing his girlfriend.

Detective Joe Mandel discovers that a red Ford Mustang mentioned in the original report as possibly belonging to the killer was stolen from an auto upholsterer in Quorum, a small town near the Arizona border and suspiciously close to Miracle’s own hometown.

MacPhee’s mother-in-law, Medora Sanders, identifies Jane Doe as Charisse Quinn, a foster child who briefly boarded with her.

Though the book is a work of fiction, it is based on an unsolved homicide that occurred in Santa Barbara County, California in August 1969.

[5] As of 2011, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office is still hoping to find additional leads, and has the images of the facial reconstruction on their page.