Who was James Putnam? The answer to that question may help Minnesota detective Alexander Rupert salvage the wreck of his career. A former Medal of Valor winner, Rupert is now under subpoena by a grand jury on suspicion of corruption. So when he s asked to look into the false identity of a car-accident victim named James Putnam, a man who in fact died fifteen years earlier, Rupert sees a potentially big case and an opportunity to regain his respectability. But the investigation puts him in the path of the Beast, the nom de guerre of Drago Basta, a cunning veteran of the Balkan wars and a sociopath assassin who has been searching for Putnam for years. Putnam had something that Basta still wants. If Rupert s life was in shambles before, it s now also in danger. Threatened by the Beast and suspecting his wife of cheating, Rupert falls for the seductions of the dead man s former girlfriend. As he feels his life spinning out of control, his steadfast brother and fellow police detective Max may be Rupert s last hope.