At the end of Dayton's first WWII blackout drill, a murder victim is found with private investigator Maggie Sullivan's name and address  in his pocket. Hours earlier he sat in her office asking for help – and using a different identity.

With the war draining men from all walks of life, a homicide detective long dismissive of Maggie's skills reaches out to form an eggshell-fragile alliance. Warily they work in tandem to find the person behind two vastly different deaths: An ex-con killed neatly outside a factory and a young woman left in a blood-soaked apartment.

Suspects abound. Maggie's client may have links to the killer. A bitter ex-con had plenty of reason to want the man who betrayed him dead. And a sleazy pulp crime writer may be after more than a story.

Maggie works frantically to unmask the murderer before he kills again. But she must also bury an old friend and watch the man who once swore to love her forever turn elsewhere. Alone, she pushes doggedly on through a landscape darkened by homefront precautions and human evil.