One by one, the 31 members of a Manhattan tontine are dying in a bizarre series of "suicides" and violent accidents. Private eye Matt Scudder is hired to identify the murderer before the terrible scheme reaches its bloody and seemingly inevitable conclusion.
In April 2002, wealthy socialite Margaret Wales-King and her husband Paul King left their home in a leafy eastern suburb, dined with her son and his family and then disappeared into thin air. Twenty-five days later, after an investigation that swamped the front pages, their bludgeoned bodies were found in a shallow bush grave just outside Melbourne. The family's grief was on full public display as speculation raged about the possible culprit and rumours about drugs, gambling and kidnapping did the rounds. Then Margaret's youngest son, Matthew, was arrested for the murders and his wife, Maritza, was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Truman's seventh, meatiest novel involves a group of blackguards, posing as prominent patriots in the nation's capital. One is Senator John Frolich whose young daughter Valerie, a journalism student, is murdered. Reporter Joe Potamos questions the victim's classmates and their instructor, George Bowen, a crony of the senator, and Marshall Jenkins, a politically powerful land developer.
The book opens with a bloody discovery: the corpse of a young soprano who has been skewered with a prop from the WNO's soon-to-premiere production of Puccini's Tosca. As the media swarm, the company sets up its own task force, and Annabel asks Mac to be involved. Life imitates opera, and suddenly all the performers seem to have something to hide: passions for one another, histories better left uncovered, and even connections to foreign terrorists.
The body of Nadia Zarinski, an attractive young woman who worked for Senator Bruce Lerner - and who volunteered at Ford's - is discovered in the alley behind the theatre. Soon a pair of mismatched cops - young, studious Rick Klayman and gregarious veteran Moses "Mo" Johnson - start digging into the victim's life, and find themselves confronting an increasing cast of suspects." There's Virginia Senator Lerner himself, rumored to have had a sexual relationship with Nadia - and half the women in D.C. under ninety . . .
