When private eye V.I. Warshawski is called out to a derelict drug house in a rural town just south of Chicago, she discovers something she wasn't expecting: the mutilated corpse of a man, dumped in a cornfield.
It is a discovery that throws V.I. into the fascinating world of physics and invention: a design which sparked the construction of the computer as we know it, the development of nuclear weapons, the wonder of Newton's prisms and a train of dramatic events that occurred in war-time Vienna over seventy years ago.
With a range of suspects too scared to open up, V.I. must delve deep into the past to find clues. Someone holds the answers to her questions - someone who will stop at nothing to prevent the truth from resurfacing . . .
Packed with Paretsky's masterfully crafted suspense and offering an illuminating insight into some of the greatest scientific developments of the twentieth century, this is set to be V.I.'s most enlightening - and exhilarating - adventure yet.