The New York Times bestselling author of A Book of Bones and one of the best thriller writers we have goes back to the very beginning of Private Investigator Charlie Parker’s astonishing career with his first terrifying case.

It is 1997, and someone is slaughtering young black women in Burdon County, Arkansas.

But no one wants to admit it, not in the Dirty South.

In an Arkansas jail cell sits a former NYPD detective, stricken by grief.

He is mourning the death of his wife and child, and searching in vain for their killer.

He cares only for his own lost family.

But that is about to change . . .

Witness the becoming of Charlie Parker.