In the half-built skeleton of a monstrously vulgar mansion in one of L.A.'s toniest neighborhoods, a watchman stumbles on the bodies of a young couple-murdered in flagrante and left in a gruesome postmortem embrace. Though he's cracked some of the city's worst slayings, veteran homicide cop Milo Sturgis is still shocked at the grisly sight: a twisted crime that only Milo's killer instincts-and psychologist Alex Delaware's keen insights-can hope to solve.
At the heart of Gardner's outstanding fourth novel featuring Boston PD detective Warren (after The Neighbor) are some very sick kids, notably Lucy, a nine-year-old feral girl who self-mutilates when any attention is given to her, and Evan, an eight-year-old boy who during fits threatens to kill his mother. D.D gets involved after two grisly family annihilations lead to the locked-down pediatric psych ward in Cambridge that specializes in Lucy's and Evan's types of hard case.
Boston comic Mark Winslow arrives with his troupe of improv actors ready to break into the Provincetown club circuit. A public fight makes him the prime suspect in the grisly butchering of a Boston blueblood. Mark believes his choice is simple: find the killer or be charged with the crime.
