A young woman participates in a staged photo shoot in the basement of a rustic cabin deep in the Sonoma County mountains. She’s a long way from San Francisco, but this isn’t her first venture into the world of Photoshopped S&M pictures. Her boss, Ivan, reassures her; after all, the money is good. So, she goes along with it. As the evening progresses, the mystery man begins to stretch beyond the world of make-believe, inflicting real pain. She tells him to stop. Then she begs. She looks to Ivan for help. Nothing works. Finally, her anguished screams are confined only to that basement, so far from any help.

This sets the premise for Oh, What a Tangled Web. It involves the San Francisco Police Department’s Homicide and Forensics Bureaus. The main characters, a group of inspectors in the SFPD, share similar backgrounds having grown up in the City with roots in police service. The narrative presents the City’s unique neighborhoods and scenes through their eyes, experiences, and feelings, guided by the author, a native San Franciscan and former police officer.