It’s August in New York, and the only thing that’s hotter than the pavement is Manhattan D.A. Alex Cooper’s professional and personal life. Just as she’s claiming an especially gratifying victory in a rape case, she gets the call: the body of a young woman has been found in an abandoned building. The brutality of the murder is disturbing enough, but when a second body, beaten and disposed of in exactly same manner, is found off the Belt Parkway, the city’s top brass want the killer found fast, before the tabloids can start churning out ghoulish serial killer headlines.