The setting is New York City on the Upper West Side. A murder has been discovered in an apartment in a very fashionable building. Dr. David Morrow’s body was found by his wife, the famous mystery author Denise Morrow, when she arrived home after a book presentation. When the detectives saw her, she was covered in blood, and a bloody knife was lying on the bedroom floor. When she made the 911 call, she seemed to have requested that one detective be called to the scene. Oddly, it was Declan Shaw, and he just happened to coincidentally be the subject of her latest, upcoming book. In the book, she accused him of being a dirty cop that planted evidence in order to convict a man of a heinous crime. In the book, she raised questions about the verdict. The man convicted was a sex offender who may, therefore, not have murdered the underage young girl, may not be guilty of the crime for which he was serving time. This convicted man’s lawyer, coincidentally, just happened to be Denise Morrow's lawyer, as well. When Geller Hoffman arrived on the scene in her apartment, as if by magic, he immediately began to protect her. She was now his client and would say nothing further to the police.
The picture Denise Morrow painted of Detective Shaw was not very pretty, so why did she ask for him? As the scene of the murder was investigated, it was discovered that the weapon in the bedroom was not the one used to kill Dr. Morrow. Furthermore, the blood on Denise Morrow was not her husband’s blood! So, what happened to the actual murder weapon and whose blood was on Denise Morrow? Whose blood was on the knife that was found there? Why did she seem to request that only the “dirty” cop enter her residence? Why did they find Declan's blood in her apartment, and why does the knife found there also match the one missing from his kitchen, although it is not the weapon that killed Dr. Morrow? Whom did it kill? Was this Denise Morrow's revenge for the evidence he had planted in the case of Ruben Lucero; was it revenge for imprisoning a man wrongfully, for a crime he didn’t commit, no matter how horrible a person he might actually be? She was an accomplished writer of murder mysteries and certainly knew her way around locked rooms.
Was this just an elaborate set-up? Was he being framed for this murder and/or another one? Where was the victim whose blood was on the knife? As the evidence mounts and seems to implicate Declan Shaw more and more, Shaw told his partner, Jarod Cordova, his theory. Denise Morrow had killed her husband because he was cheating, and she was now trying to pin it on him using the three-card monte scheme, a rigged game designed to scam the victim. As the bodies pile up, it was hard to believe that all the evidence was false or planted, although it was obvious that someone was lying, but whom?
This book is hard to put down. From the first page, this diabolical, murder mystery will put you, the voyeur, on the edge of the seat and will keep you there as you wonder if someone has committed the perfect crime or if someone is being framed! First you will think you absolutely have the whole plot figured out, but soon you will realize that you have not guessed it at all. You will be directed in one direction and then in another, often stretching your own credulity, but suspending disbelief will be impossible. Although the clues in the case are often nothing more than misdirection, you, the reader, will feel that you are actually also being toyed with in the same way as the police officers. Will justice be served in the end? Actually, the ending is quite the surprise!