The mesmerizing, darkly
original novel that heralded the arrival of now New York Times
bestselling author Dennis Lehane, the master of the new noir--and introduced
Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, his smart and tough private investigators
weaned on the blue-collar streets of Dorchester.

A cabal of powerful Boston
politicians is willing to pay Kenzie and Gennaro big money for a seemingly
small job: to find a missing cleaning woman who stole some secret documents. As
Kenzie and Gennaro learn, however, this crime is no ordinary theft. It's about
justice, about right and wrong. But in Boston, finding the truth isn't just a
dirty business . . . it's deadly.