Henry Loving is a 'lifter', hired to extract information from his victims. He is very good at it. His next target is a Washington DC detective, whose family are immediately put under government protection. The man assigned to their case is Corte: uncompromising, relentlessly devoted to protecting those in his care and a brilliant strategist. He knows just how brutal the lifter can be - six years earlier, Loving killed someone close to him. As tension increases inside the family, the situation escalates into a deadly contest between the hunter and his prey. As the lifter closes in, Corte must decide whether to protect his charges or use them as bait in the name of personal revenge.
The main target keeps changing throughout, which keeps the reader ensconced to the end.