In Miami Beach, all hell is breaking loose. First, a swimmer makes a gruesome discovery in a rowboat, and soon after the city is rocked by an explosion. When Detective Sam Becket's sister-in-law Claudia becomes a blackmail victim, Sam wants to help her and wife Grace, but he has a vicious killer to find.

His only lead is Mildred Bleeker, a local character who's seen a frightening stranger: a young man, silver from head to toe, shimmering in the night, who put her in mind of the angel of death. Cal the Hater learned about pain and humiliation from an expert. Now he's found a way to make other suffer too, and he's gettigna real taste for it. The unthinkable is about to happen...