The body of a woman from respectable, conservative Glendale is found stashed under a ramshackle house in the middle of the inner city. Detective Luis Mendoza marks the rising heat by the crime and violence raging through the sun-baked streets of Los Angeles - and it's going to be a hot one . . . A thug is shot to death. A mysterious string of robberies continues unabated . . . all without a clue. But the family-man cop knows that where there's heat there's fire - and a cold trail to nowhere promises to turn into a red-hot path leading straight to the damned. 'A Luis Mendoza mystery means superlative suspense' Los Angeles Times