Boston policy inspector Francis Xavier Flynn is in for a tough day. He has hardly gotten a wink of sleep, due to a marathon bout of detective work. His daughter, Jenny, drags him to a cemetery, where her best friend is nailed to a tree by his ear. Unfortunately, the boy refuses to reveal who did it or why. Next, Flynn hears that his incompetent sidekick, Grover, has convinced the police chief to fire him—again…but someone even more powerful than the chief of police wants Flynn to forget everything else and concentrate on discovering who is threatening a certain Harvard professor.