Death is reporter Jack McEvoy's beat: his calling, his obsession, and we are told that right at the start. This story is about a serial killer who is cunning and brutally savage. Stephen Kings said of the book in the introduction that he wrote that the book scared him.

Jack McEvoy is a crime reporter for the Rocky Mountain News, and this time he is searching for information about a killer who targets homicide cops, each haunted by a murder case he couldn't crack. The killers leave a signature with each victim, a quotation from Edgar Allan Poe's works.

The latest victim is McEvoy's brother, so Jack digs even more profound, making himself so visible that he becomes a target. After much investigation, Jack concludes that his brother's death was made to look like a suicide by a serial killer.

This was the 5th book written by Michael Connelly, and it was published in 1996. It clearly shows that Connelly is a master storyteller.