When a woman's partially decomposed body washes ashore in Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone is forced into a case far more difficult than it at first appears. Identifying the woman is just the first step in what proves to be a difficult and emotionally charged investigation.

Florence Horvath was an attractive, recently divorced heiress from Florida; she also had a penchant for steamy sex and was an enthusiastic participant in a video depicting the same. Somehow the combination of her past and present got her killed, but no one is talking - not the crew of the Lady Jane, the Fort Lauderdale yacht moored in Paradise harbour; nor her very blonde, very tanned twin sisters, Corliss and Claudia; and not her curiously affectless parents, living out a sterile retirement in a Miami high rise. But someone - Jesse - has to speak for the dead, even if it puts him in harm's way.