The professor was an eccentric old bird, and his daughter was a delicate flower. So how could Harry Stoner suspect the snake pit of hatred and greed he was walking into that winter day when he agreed to find a missing document for Professor Daryl Lovingwell? Following Sarah Lovingwell to a subversive group landed Stoner face-to-face with a towering ex-marine making a new career of murder. Before Stoner could catch his balance, one of the two Lovingwells was dead, and snow-steeped Cincinnati was cut through the center by a highway of blood and violence. Harry Stoner was in the middle of it-holding the pieces of an explosive puzzle of lies. Blackmail, adultery, and evil-an evil you'd never associate with a sensitive little man in tweed, until you saw good people die before your eyes.