In the shadows of unbearable tragedy, an unlikelykilling machine begins a one-man war tobring a city to its knees -- a battle that will touchthe lives of its eight million citizens including:

• a writer on the verge of a breakthrough
  
  
  
  
• a charismatic ex-police commissioner -- and the inside choice for the next mayor -- on the edge of a breakdown
  
  
  
  
• a beautiful, sophisticated art dealerplumbing the depths of her own fiercesexuality
  
  
  
  
• a defense attorney who prefers murdertrials because there's one less witness
  
  
  
  
• an ex-addict who has turned being cleaninto a living, mopping up after New York'snightlife

Pulsating with the lives of its denizens -- bartenders and hookers, power brokers andpoliticos, cops and secretaries, editors anddreamers -- Lawrence Block's electrifying newnovel reveals the small town at the heart of theBig Apple in all its power, terror, and starkbeauty.