Who stabbed Manuel Ruiz, the 18-year-old son of highly respected State Senator Ernesto Ruiz, leaving him to die in a Manhattan alley? Police suspect it's a gang murder when they find a jacket at the scene, bearing the emblem of Las Serpientes, a street gang known as The Serps. Why would a son with a good home and a close, loving family choose to join a gang? And why was he murdered? Amateur sleuth Liz Rooney sets out to get answers, and narrowly escapes the gangland's retribution. But she provides her fianc , NYPD Homicide Detective Ike Eichle, with a vital clue, just in time for them to get married and go on their honeymoon with the case solved.