After a lull of four years the 'silk stocking rapist' is back at work on the Upper East side but this time Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper & Detective Mike Chapman have perfect DNA evidence to work with. They also have a much older case to work on
- a skeleton has been found entombed in the wall of a house Edgar Allan Poe once lived in but it turns out to be a relatively modern murder
- from 1978. On the day the discovery of this body is leaked to the press Alex gets a call that the silk stocking rapist has struck again this time fatally. Or has he? The m.o. isn't precisely the same as the others & it transpires that the victim worked in Poe's old house in 1978. Are the cases linked or is someone trying to silence possible witness to a thirty-five-year-old murder? With consummate skill Linda Fairstein has created an outstanding crime novel layered with the history of New York the roller-coaster everyday life of a prosecutor & culminating with a surprising but satisfying denouement.