The first chill of fall sends a shiver up the small college town of Newark, Delaware as the aging veteran detective AEDAN is handed the task of investigating the suspicious suicide of a sixteen year old high school girl, Alli Simmons. What quickly follows int eh normally quiet community is a string of seemingly unrelated crimes that have the department baffled. Aedan grows increasingly doubtful that Alli's death was a suicide as the coroner discovers an apparent callling card left on the body, a bizarre series of three slashes on her neck made in permanent marker. As subsequent women are found murdered in the short period of a few weeks before Halloween, all bearing the same three slashes, the weary detective realizes he has a serial murderer toying with him. While trying to piece together the facts of the investigation, Aedan is also trying to piece together his complicated time girlfriend RACHEL is the catallyst that sends his world into a frenzy when she grows tired of waiting around for him to marry her and breaks off their relationship. It is in this confusion that Aedan has to confront his fear of maturing. Amid the seriousness, Aedan's unpredictable baby sister Cassandra, hi-hip partner Juan, and his nosey next door neighbor MILDRED, keep us charmed and Aedan busy with their mischieveousness and mishaps. The climax of the story pivots around Halloween and the time sensitive rush to get to the latest victim being held captive, Aedan's own personal friend MONA. It is at this point he makes the wrenching choice to throw his career away to save her life. Aedan triumphs in both his mission to apprehend the serial murder and to find his path to maturity, and ultimately back to Rachel.