A five-year-old unsolved murder, a U.S. senate candidate with a past to hide, and an alleged art forgery that rocks the art world: All pieces of a multi-dimensional puzzle facing Detective Veronica Brilliant and the women of the Monet Detective Agency.
Hired to solve a cold-case murder, Brilliant, a transgender former Marine MP struggling with her own sexuality, faces an unrelenting succession of threats from an unknown source, raising the suspicion that her own client, the murder victim's grandson, could be the killer. Embroiled in a controversy arising from the sale of a famous work of art, Joan Miro's The Reaper, the grandson, Hamilton Blethen, fires Brilliant, adding to the suspicion.
Driven by her own demons to find the murderer, Brilliant searches for Blethen's estranged mother, who might have information about the murder and her son's innocence, sending Brilliant down a dangerous path that leads to Magnolia Kanaranzi, a Boston media magnate in the midst of a campaign to become the next Senator from Massachusetts.
Propelled by her crazed quest for political power, Kanaranzi unleashes the might of her wealth and influence to keep the investigation from interfering with the election. As polls close, puzzle pieces fall in place, but the final picture is not the one Brilliant expected, realizing neither her client, nor the Senator-elect from Massachusetts, are who they appear to be.
