Fallen Angels

There are a lot of things you really don’t want to find when you’re a homicide detective in the Bronx. High on the list is a new serial killer. Serial killers are real bad news because they kill without motive, so they are hard to trace and they can take years to catch.

But even worse than a new serial killer, is a new kind of serial killer: one who murders with a motive, but a motive so unfathomable nobody can understand it; a motive that makes his choice of victims incomprehensible and unpredictable, a motive that leads to each victim being killed in a particularly cruel and unusual way.

One thing – and one thing only – connects each of these awful crimes, and that’s that each victim is made to die slowly, reflecting on the way they have lived, listening to some piece of ancient, sacred music.

When the case finally reaches Detectives Stone and Dehan at the 43rd it is already six years old, and no closer to being solved than it was when the first victim died. To Stone it seems there is a sinister and intelligent hand at work – the hand of a fallen angel.