Politics, science, and murder.
Dr. Abina Owusu, a faculty member researching racial health care inequities at the Maine Translational Research, is shocked when she’s arrested by ICE agents and told that she’s been deemed a threat to national security. While she’s spoken out against the administration’s cuts to funding for medical research, climate change, and health care, she insists that she’s done nothing wrong. Nonetheless, she’s held in a county jail awaiting transfer to a deportation facility. It therefore comes as a relief when two ICE agents appear at the jail and take her into their custody with apologies for her mistaken arrest and promises that she’ll be promptly released. Until they drive away from the jail and brutally murder her.
When state police lieutenant Karen Richmond is called to investigate, she’s joined by her husband, Dr. Brad Parker, who knew Abina in his role as director of MTRI. They quickly discover that a similar murder took place in New Hampshire a month ago, and the list of victims continues to grow as Brad and Karen struggle to unravel the plot. Is the scheme’s mastermind someone within ICE or someone outside who’s manipulating the system? And can he be stopped before more lives are lost—including Brad and Karen’s?
