Hope, the defense attorney, believes Mary Barton is innocent of murdering 3 young girls, but evidence convicts her until a long buried secret is revealed.

Former Santa Barbara D.A. Luke Garrison, having retreated to the wilds of northern California after sending an innocent man to the death chamber, returns to the legal arena to defend a man he believes has been wrongfully accused of abducting and killing a fourteen-year-old girl.

Defense attorney Christopher Paget becomes the chief suspect in the murder of his lover's estranged husband.

Fact-based story of Grace Marks, a sixteen-year-old girl who received a life sentence in 1843 for allegedly taking part in the murder of her employer and his lover, but whose case continued to stir debate throughout her prison stay, resulting in her release in 1872.

Assistant District Attorney Alexa Hamilton reluctantly sends her seventeen-year-old daughter Savannah, to live with her ex-husband and his family in Charleston after she received death threats against Savannah's life for prosecuting serial killer Luke Quentin.

Attorney Dismas Hardy and his friend, Abe Glitsky, newly promoted to deputy chief of the San Francisco Investigations Bureau, find life at the top of their professions somewhat disillusioning, but their faith is restored when Dismas discovers evidence that a teenage client accused of a double murder may just be innocent, and Abe goes head-to-head with a serial killer.