Part murder mystery, part love story, Saving McNamara is a record of Sarah Costa's search for truth. After her father's death in 1967, Sarah rescues a young army lieutenant from drowning, then leaves Hawaii to study nursing in San Francisco. In a city haunted by angels and serial killers, she meets her first love. Falls in with revolutionaries. Helps a detective hunt an elusive killer preying on gay men. And wakes up in an hospital emergency room, to begin her decades-long search for her fugitive cousin, a kidnapped child, and a suspected killer. In 2001, Peter Sieracki, a rookie FBI agent, meets a experienced journalist who claims to know the identity of a long forgotten serial killer. When Sieracki doesn't believe her, the journalist steals his badge and leads him on a chase through the twisted streets of San Francisco and meetings with Sarah Costa's old friends. They warn him not to deal with the journalist, and offer as evidence, confused memories of Jonestown, the SLA, Operation Baby Lift, a dead psychiatrist, and missing psychiatric records. Their final advice: Find Sara Costa. If there is a killer, she will know. In Hilo, Sarah Costa has returned home, befriended a young history teacher, and is beginning to solve mysteries from her past. But when Peter Sieracki arrives, she realizes that to save her friends, old and new, she will have to find the strength to face a higher truth.