"Well-used to elevated emotions, psychologist Alex Delaware shrugs off a joking death threat from beautiful Beverly Hills physician Constance Sykes, whose attempt to secure legal custody of her baby niece is thwarted by Alex's forthright report to the court. Alex plays down the threat until LAPD's Milo Sturgis rushes to his side with the shocking word on the street that a hit's been taken out on him. But while Alex may be in grave danger, it won't be from the Beverly Hills doctor, for Connie's soon discovered brutally slain. When her sister Cherie and the baby disappear, apparently on the run, Alex's search for answers lead him to aged rockers, charming homeboys and even Machiavellian judges. As the darkest of secrets are peeled away, and a cruel system churns through family lives, Alex seeks to stop a vicious killer and save a child from a life of nightmares ... or worse." Provided by the Publisher.

The City of Angels has more than its share of psychopaths, and no one recognizes that more acutely than the brilliant psychologist and police consultant Dr. Alex Delaware. Despite that, Constance Sykes, a sophisticated, successful physician, hardly seems like someone Alex needs to fear. Then, at the behest of the court, he becomes embroiled in a bizarre child custody dispute initiated by Connie against her sister and begins to realize that there is much about the siblings he has failed to comprehend. And when the court battle between the Sykes sisters erupts into cold, calculating murder and a rapidly growing number of victims, Alex knows he’s been snared in a toxic web of pathology. Nothing would please Alex more than to be free of the ugly spectacle known as Sykes v. Sykes. But then the little girl at the center of the vicious dispute disappears and Alex knows he must work with longtime friend Detective Milo Sturgis, braving an obstacle course of Hollywood washouts, gangbangers, and self-serving jurists in order to save an innocent life.