The Scarce Man centers on Agent Mike Rawlings of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He is Minnesota's top murder detective and is nearing retirement when he's called in to handle the most baffling and dangerous case of his career. Someone with a violent M.O. is killing certain people in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Rawlings deduces that the murders are politically motivated, but what he doesn't know is that the killer, who in the days following 9/11, has become obsessed with the idea that he alone can begin a chain of events that will launch the social revolution he believes will save the country. The killer forms an alter-ego, whom he calls The Patriot. What Rawlings doesn't know, is that the Patriot has inside knowledge that will make him more deadly than anyone he's ever faced; and much harder to stop.