The pretty young prostitute is dead. Her alleged murderer—a minister''s son—hanged himself in his jail cell. The case is closed. But the dead girl''s fatherhas come to Matthew Scudder for answers, sending the unlicensed private investigator in search of terrible truths about a life that was lived and lost in a sordid world of perversion and pleasures.

The pretty young prostitute is dead. Her alleged murderer—a minister''s son—hanged himself in his jail cell. The case is closed. But the dead girl''s fatherhas come to Matthew Scudder for answers, sending the unlicensed private investigator in search of terrible truths about a life that was lived and lost in a sordid world of perversion and pleasures.