On a January afternoon he’s called to a construction site at which he was snapping photos of in the morning and had an altercation with a couple of thugs. The detective in charge is hostile and sloppy and Rutledge is quickly dismissed. An hour later and the sheriff’s office has him photographing another victim on a nearby island. Rutledge recognizes that the incidents are related and connected to his early morning encounter. So begins a strange week of murder and mayhem as Rutledge seeks to stay alive, stay out of jail, and catch a killer as his friends are threatened and others are murdered in copycat fashion to recent unsolved crimes.