Defense attorney Martin Vail has become Chicago's chief prosecutor, the man with the power to tear down enemies in high places. But he must also confront his worst legal nightmare - a nightmare that he, himself, helped to create.It begins with a shocking, unsolved murder: a young mother named Linda Balfour is butchered in a small town in southern Illinois, and no one can turn up a single lead. But then, months later, a tiny crack opens up in the case. By a stroke of pure chance, an investigator in the Chicago D.A.'s office discovers that Linda Balfour died with a coded inscription printed in blood on the back of her head. It is the exact combination of letters and numbers that was found on the head of Bishop Rushman, the beloved Chicago clergyman who had been slashed and dismembered years before by an angelic-looking altar boy named Aaron Stampler. The same Aaron Stampler whom Vail saved from the electric chair.For the past ten years, Stampler has been locked away in a high security institution for the criminally insane, with no access to the outside world. So how could he have killed Linda Balfour? And then another altar boy turns up dead - with a similar inscription in blood on the back of his head.If Aaron Stampler isn't committing these killings, who is? Martin Vail's career - maybe even his life - hangs in the balance.... Read Less