First in her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, then on to her new stomping grounds of Maple Hills, Vermont, where she makes chocolate and stumbles onto murders. But this time it is not Nikki that has found the trouble, but her partner, Detective Hawk Daily. When an ex-partner and one-time friend summons Hawk to Atlanta after being shot it reveals an intrigue with International implications.
From east to west, construction happens every day in America. Buildings are thrown up, old ones are torn down and new projects are planned. On those construction sites, workers come and go, yet Nikki and Hawk discover that for the massive Dellington and Haim construction firm, many of those workers are illegal immigrants bought and sold as cheap slave labor. Tricked or coerced by men that value money more than human lives, these immigrants are trapped in a rat’s maze of slavery and death…and Nikki and Hawk have walked right into the middle of it.