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Workers demolishing a nineteenth-century brownstone where Poe once lived discover a human skeleton standing - entombed - behind a brick wall. When assistant district attorney and sex crimes prosecutor Alexandra Cooper hears about the case, it strikes her as a classic scene from Poe's fiction...except that forensic evidence shows this young woman died within the last twenty-five years.
Meanwhile, Alex is furious at the news that an old nemesis may be preying on women once again on Manhattan's exclusive Upper East Side. The Silk Stocking Rapist first struck four years ago, leaving a string of victims in his wake, then abruptly disappeared before Alex and the NYPD could identify him. Now, with improved forensic technology and a national DNA data bank to draw from, a fresh attack may give Alex a new lease on many old crimes, just in time to beat the statute of limitations.
But when a woman dies as a result of her injuries, Alex's search for justice for the rapist's prior victims becomes a hunt for a killer as well. As Alex peels back the layers of the murdered woman's past indiscretions, she finds more than one potential enemy and many intriguing connections between the Silk Stocking Rapist, his victims, and the haunting theme of revenge that pervades Poe's stories.
The case takes Alex and detectives Mercer Wallace and Mike Chapman from a quiet college campus to the stunning, 250-acre forest that comprises the New York Botanical Gardens. There, an enigmatic librarian presides over the Raven Society, a secretive group devoted to the work of Poe. Could it be that their fascination with a writer famed for depicting bizarre and exquisitely planned murders goes well beyond scholarly interest? In exploring the fabled writer's tormented life for clues, Alex will cross paths with a cunning killer and face some of the greatest challenges of her career.

Linda Fairstein, America's foremost expert on crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence, led the Sex Crimes Unit of the District Attorney's Office in Manhattan for twenty-five years, leaving in 2002 to write, lecture, and continue her advocacy for victims of violence. A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a member of the International Society of Barristers, she is a graduate of Vassar College and the University of Virginia School of Law. Her first novel, Final Jeopardy, which introduced the character Alexandra Cooper, was published in 1996 to critical and commercial acclaim. Likely to Die, Cold Hit, The Deadhouse, The Bone Vault, and her most recent novel, The Kills, also achieved international bestseller status. Her nonfiction book Sexual Violence was a New York Times notable book in 1994. She lives with her husband in Manhattan and on Martha's Vineyard.

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Chapter 1 I looked at the pool of dried blood that covered the third-floor landing of a brownstone on one of the safest residential blocks in Manhattan and wondered how the young woman who'd been left here to die yesterday, her chest pierced by a steak knife, could still be alive this afternoon.Mercer Wallace crouched beside the stained flooring, pointing out for me the smaller areas of discoloration. "These smudges, I figure, are partial imprints of the perp's shoe. He must have lost his footing over there."The blood streaked away from the door of the victim's apartment, as though her attacker had slid in the slippery fluid and stumbled to the top of the staircase."So there's likely to be some of this on his clothing?""Pants leg and shoes for certain, until he cleans them. Look here," he said, and my eyes followed the tip of the pen he was using as a pointer. Outlined on the light gray paint of the door to 3B was another bloody design. "That's hers, Alex. She must have braced herself with one foot against that panel to push the guy off. She put up a fierce struggle."I could make out the V-shaped tip of a woman's shoe sole, and inches lower the circular mark that confirmed it was a pump rather than a flat."High heels and all, she did pretty well for herself. Just lucky." The uniformed cop who had been assigned to safeguard the crime scene for the past twenty-four hours spoke to Mercer as he straightened up."That's what we're calling it now when someone resists a rapist and ends up in the intensive care unit with a few holes in her chest and a collapsed lung?""Sorry, Ms. Cooper. I mean the girl is fortunate to be alive. You know she went DOA when they pulled up to the docking bay at the emergency room?"Mercer had told me that. Annika Jelt had stopped breathing on the short ride to New York Hospital. The cops who were dispatched to a neighbor's 911 call reporting screams in the stairwell knew there was no time to wait for an ambulance. The young officer who carried the victim down to the patrol car had served in the army reserves as a medic during the war in Iraq. Annika owed her life to the fact that he revived her in the backseat of the RMP, on the way to the ER, before she was rushed into surgery to inflate her lung and stanch the bleeding.Mercer led the way down the staircase. The traces of black fingerprint dust on the banister and walls reminded me that the Crime Scene Unit had done a thorough workup of the building when they were summoned by Mercer, shortly after the 3 a.m. attack on a frigid morning in late January."He never got her inside the apartment?""Nope. She fought like hell to keep him out.""Did he take anything?" I asked."Keys. He took the ring with the keys to both the vestibule door and the apartment. The super's changed both locks already.""But money? Jewelry?""Her pocketbook was lying on the ground next to her. Cash and credit cards were inside and she still had on her earrings and bracelet. He wasn't there for the money."Mercer had double-parked outside the five-story walk-up on East Sixty-sixth Street. He had awakened me yesterday at six o'clock to tell me about the case. We had worked together for the better part of the decade that I had run the sex crimes prosecution unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, while he had been assigned to the police department's Special Victims Squad. He knew I'd want the first heads-up about the crime, before it was reported on the local network news and before the DA, Paul Battaglia, hunted me down to get enough details so that he could answer the flood of calls from local politicians, concerned citizens, and the ever-curious media. Violent crime, especially sexual assault, was always fodder for headlines when it happened in the high-rent district of the Upper East Side.I left my desk in the criminal courthouse this afternoon to join Mercer at the victim's apartment. It alw

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