Mitch Hammer is an FBI agent on an organized crime task force investigating the disappearances of numerous witnesses connected to the very successful New York criminal defense attorney Nikolai Lebedev. Desperate to break the case in this ten year growing mystery, Hammer kidnaps Isobel Lebedev his abused wife, and successful biochemist. Lebedev just happens to own numerous race horses, something Hammer sees as incidental. As the scope of his target's equine interests come to light, Hammer realizes that Hall of Fame trainer Daniel John Georgio's death was not an accident, and that there is far more at stake than meets the eye. Soon he and Isobel are on the run for their lives, barely one step ahead of a man who never lets anything stand in his way; certainly not in the way of his dream of winning the Run for the Roses. The story within the story in one that touches on cloning technology with the fictitious cloning of a few famous racehorses and the quest to win the Kentucky Derby. The racing theme is woven throughout.