File No. 1161

A detective who trusts facts. A widow who trusts no one. And a dead man whose silence may be the loudest evidence of all.

Adam Grice has faced difficult cases before, but nothing like this. Six months after Professor Ellsworth was laid quietly in the ground—mourned by his wife, attended by his physician, buried without a breath of suspicion—the rumors have finally grown too loud to ignore. A Spaniard who appeared from nowhere. A wife who turned cold. Ducks that died in a yard after eating discarded soup.

Now Grice stands over an exhumed coffin, and the analyst's report confirms what gossip only dared whisper: arsenic.

The crime is half a year old. The widow has vanished. Her companion—the charming, mysterious Mina—has vanished with her. The only witnesses are a frightened servant girl, a deceived physician, and a broken-hearted neighbor who may have waited too long to speak.

Grice is already being watched. A stranger in bohemian circles asks careful questions about him—about where he lives, how he works, how close he gets before a man knows he's being followed.

Someone knows Grice is on the trail.

As the investigation pulls him deeper into a world of false names, forged identities, and cold-blooded calculation, Grice confronts the darkest question of the case: can he expose a pair of poisoners before they discover he's already closing in?