People like Ann Buckhalter, the wife of a retired Marine lieutenant colonel, often stay at the Bachelor Officers' Quarter (B.O.Q.) when they return to Camp Lejeune to visit friends or shop at the Exchange. But their dead bodies don't end up floating in the nearby New River. When Special Agent Fran Setliff and her Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) team investigate Ann's murder, they soon discover that more than one person's life has been simplified by the victim's death. As Fran delves into Ann's background, she begins to glimpse the unsavory things that go on behind the camouflage curtain: racial and gender discrimination, unethical medical practices, sexual indiscretions. In her position as a freelance journalist for the local civilian newspaper, Ann was in a position to ruin more than one promising military career. But who killed her?