Following the sound of a scream, history professor Andrew Stanard comes running. In the nearby departmental bathroom at Chesapeake Bay University, a woman has been murdered. She is quickly identified as Jenny Biggio, a graduate student, and she has quite obviously been strangled. The police are quick to suspect someone in the history department-most notably Professor Stanard's protege Brendan Healy.
Everyone knows Brendan was Jenny's boyfriend, but it isn't common knowledge that Jenny checked out three pregnancy books from the university library the day she was murdered. A very public confrontation between Brendan and Jenny early in the day, however, points at the boyfriend's guilt, and Brendan does little to defend himself, admitting he once served time in a juvenile correctional facility.
Even so, Stanard knows there's more to this case than meets the eye. He understands the cops want to solve the murder quickly to get it off the front page; in order to save Brendan, Stanard does his own digging. He comes upon several overlooked suspects, including a squirrelly pizza deliveryman, a homeless wino with a felony-prone past, and a philandering professor. The deeper he digs, the more dangerous things get; soon Professor Stanard may be the killer's next target.