"When Neely Jones, the only African American and female member of the Taft County Police Department, finds someone has added her name as a write-in candidate on the ballot for the position of sheriff, she doesn't expect to actually get elected. In fact, it's the last thing she wants. Her prejudiced coworkers already resent her. She and her boyfriend, a gentle Japanese marine biologist named Jan Koto, regularly experience racial harassment from a local group of skinheads.

These actions, once reported, go largely ignored by the present bigoted sheriff, Giff Wills, who doesn't hide his purely political reasons for having hired Neely in the first place. But she does win, and despite having a staff that is near mutiny and somewhat expecting to fail, Neely decides she can do it. Then, within her first few days in office, Jan Koto is found shot and then drowned in a tank of rare jellyfish at the Oceanographic Center.

It is up to a devastated Neely to keep her cool if she is to find her lover's killer."--BOOK JACKET.