Former social-worker S.R. Reynolds has never forgotten the mishandled case of fifteen-year-old Michelle Anderson, a vibrant beauty who went missing from Reynold's Knoxville, Tennessee, neighborhood years earlier. Aided by her old professor, famed forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass-founder of the University of Tennessee's 'Body Farm'-Reynolds picks up the trail of this cold case.

As she presses neglected pieces of the puzzle into place, Reynolds unearths a string of heinous kidnappings and rapes across the South, crimes that span decades. A picture begins to form. Patterns appear. And all that evidence points to one man: convicted sex offender Larry Lee Smith.

As a result of Reynold's efforts, the Knoxville Police Department reopen the cold case of Michelle's disappearance, but Larry Lee is about to be released from a Georgia prison, where he served time for a related crime-a 'similar transaction'. SIMILAR TRANSACTIONS: A True Story-S.R. Reynolds