Returning to Maine after a blissful honeymoon in Mexico, kennel owner Jack Field and his smart and sexy bride, chief medical examiner Dr. Jamie Cutter, are ready to fulfill a promise made to a new friend they met there. The daughter of retired general Lamar MacLeary asked dog expert Jack to help her father "rewire" his wired wire-haired fox terrier, Molly, whose incessant digging is driving the general crazy. But Jack arrives to find Molly's most recent excavation has unearthed something nobody expected: the bones of a human hand belonging to the general's wife, who supposedly ran off to Mexico twenty years ago.

The police think the distraught World War II hero killed her in a jealous rage, but Jack and Jamie aren't so sure. And in their dogged determination to dig up the truth, the newlyweds begin unearthing hints of corporate fraud, high-level corruption, the terrifying return of a cold-blooded killer, and some buried MacLeary family skeletons that could lead to more death . . . Jack's and Jamie's included.