Detective Harry Bosch reopens one of this own unsolved cases and comes face-to-face with a psychotic killer he has been seeking for years in this novel. In 1995, Marie Gesto disappeared after walking out of a supermarket in Hollywood. Bosch worked the case but couldn't crack it, and the 22-year-old woman never turned up, dead or alive. Now, Bosch is in the Open-Unsolved Unit, where he still keeps the Gesto file on his desk, when he gets a call from the D. A. A man accused of two heinous killings is willing to come clean about several other murders, including the killing of Marie Gesto. But when Bosch learns that he and his partner missed a clue back in 1995 that could have led them to Gesto's killer - and that would have prevented nine murders that followed - he begins to crack.