Tom Hawkins has a terrible relationship with his ex-wife and a strained one with his teenage daughter, who he tries to stay close to by coaching her high school soccer team. When his ex-wife is murdered, the police consider Tom their prime suspect. Tom believes that people from his past are returning because of secrets he's tried to keep hidden, and then things get even worse when he's accused of having an affair with a female student and incriminating photos are found on his work computer. Tom needs to find out who's framing him, but evidence is not on his side, and neither is the public. The sheriff hates Tom and can't wait to see him punished, but the FBI investigator involved soon wonders if Tom really is telling the truth.

The mystery is definitely the highlight of the book. I had no idea who was framing Tom, and I kept reading because I was eager to find out who was behind this and why. There were multiple mysteries going on at once, all of which eventually intertwined. I felt that the mystery of Tom's ex-wife's murder seemed to fade into the background once Tom started being framed for having an affair with his students, complete with "evidence" of this planted on his work computer. There was definitely a theme of what not to do with cell phones, if you're underage (or any age, really): don't take naked or semi-naked photos of yourself. Tom didn't do a lot of the investigation himself; the narrative jumped around, so the reader was able to see the investigation unfold from the FBI's perspective. Instead, Tom spends his time proclaiming his innocence and digging up old contacts so he can figure out why secrets from years ago are suddenly reappearing.

The author did a good job portraying the villains, but the people the reader should be rooting for fell flat. Tom is an okay main character, and he definitely was shown trying to do the right thing, keeping his head up despite his ex-wife's old smear campaign against him. The other major characters felt less developed, as did the basis for part of the plot. For example, Tom's investigated for having an affair with a student because an anonymous person starts a Facebook account, then sends a friend request to a number of people at the high school, saying they'll reveal a secret about Tom if they accept the friend request. After a bunch of them click "accept", this anonymous source claims Tom's having an affair. There is no other evidence to corroborate this story, nor does any girl on the team admit to anything, but everyone immediately believes it anyway. I know such allegations would need to be investigated, but it all just seemed way too convenient. The FBI investigator's attraction to Tom seemed convenient as well; this was not a well done romantic element and felt way out of place.

Although this was a fairly quick read, it was a lot more procedural than I would have liked; much time was spent describing various computer programs, investigative techniques, and so forth. Personal relationships weren't explored; they were described, but not usually shown. The dialogue was also stilted, leaving me less than enthralled with the characters. No one came to life as a real person; everyone had their necessary quirks to distinguish one from another, but no one fully came alive. Also, I felt as if there was so much going on in this book, so many overlapping plots, that most of them were merely touched upon and not completely explored. I think this is what made parts of the book seem busy in retrospect, even though everything was simply being moved along a little at a time.

While I did enjoy parts of the book and think the author definitely did a lot of research in order to write this, it ultimately didn't come together as believable, making it lackluster overall.