When a Manhattan psychiatrist is murdered, a retired detective returns to the job, in a thriller by the #1 New York Timesโ??bestselling "master of suspense" (The Washington Post).
On a rainy November night, Dr. Simon Ellerbee stares out the window of his Upper East Side psychiatry office, miserably wishing he could seek counseling for the problems in his seemingly perfect life. He hears the door buzzer and goes to answer it, but flinches when he sees his unexpected guest. Minutes later, he's dead, his skull crushed by repeated blows from a ball-peen hammer. Once the doctor was down, the killer turned over the body and smashed in Ellerbee's eyes.

With no leads and a case getting colder by the hour, the New York Police Department calls in former chief Edward Delaney. His search for the truth raises more questions than answers: Who had Ellerbee let into his office? Why were there two sets of wet footprints on the carpeting of the doctor's townhouse? What caused Ellerbee's odd personality transformation over the past year? And who murdered, then symbolically mutilated, the prominent Manhattan psychiatrist?