For fifty-six years, a virulent sequence of horrific torture and death in war darkened Eastern Europe has continued to fester. Now a new series of crimes is about to upend the complacency of middle class Park Slope, a cozy brownstone neighborhood alongside beautiful Prospect Park. It is here that Christine Ferrier is attempting to rebuild a life shattered by the traumatic loss at sea of her football star husband. When her neighbor, talk show host Maggie Jarratt, is bludgeoned to death, the police immediately make sexy sailor Jerry Jarratt their number one suspect (though 'sexy' is probably not their description). Christine, remembering the harsh questioning of the police and cruel attacks in the press before she was completely exonerated in her husband's death, rushes headlong to his defense. Despite her best intentions to concentrate on raising her two young children and the dogs she has agreed to foster, Christine finds herself inexorably drawn deeper, first when a second victim is found and then when a mysterious band of street musicians arrive to play at the local block party. More deaths follow and a fatal explosion and fire seem to bring closure. Christine, emotionally exhausted, seeks the shelter of her family in Newport, Rhode Island, but now infectious strains of that old evil still linger, and now they threaten her very existence.
