Detectives Goren and Eames are investigating the case of a beheaded woman whose body has disappeared.
During the investigation, the detectives discover that the victim turns out to be the daughter of a jailed Russian mob boss. At first, they suspect that she was murdered after announcing plans to write a revealing book about the family business, and thugs planned a gangland hit to kill her, but evidently someone beat them to it. Further investigations reveals that one of her previous private school classmates had an even more sordid reason to execute her.
Then, Goren and Eames discover that an uptight, self-tortured real estate magnate might have feared exposure of his own dark childhood secrets and kinky alter ego if a book had been published.
