With all his serial killer experience, LAPD homicide detective Herman "Hermie" Grabfelder is shocked at the savagery of the murder of Jordan Hashemi and Lila Miller on Mother's Day, witnessed by her teenage son who has vanished. Shock and frustration mount when this is followed by the similar slaughter of three young, lovely Muslim women. Now dodging political ramifications and hiding the catatonic son until he recovers enough to name the killer, Hermie has to solve murders that echo assassinations invented in eleventh-century Persia.