Instruments of Night
Paul Graves knows evil to the bone. He confronted it first as a boy, when he survived the torture-murder of his sister. As a man, he has made its exploration his life's work, tirelessly writing mysteries set in gaslight New York, a world of mists and shadows, of voices pleading in the fog, footsteps racing over rain-swept cobblestones...a world colored by the ache of Grave's own past, its still-remembered screams. It is a far cry from Riverwood, the artists' community in upstate New York where Graves is invited to spend the summer. And yet, for all its splendor and grand isolation, Riverwood was once touched by crime - the murder of Faye Harrison, a teenage girl who'd lived on the estate fifty years before. Faye's mother is now dying, but uneasily, still tormented by the unanswered questions about her daughter's death. Graves has been summoned by Allison Davies, Faye's girlhood friend and now Riverwood's owner, and asked to explore this long-past crime, apply the art of mystery fiction to a murder that was real, then write a story that will answer those very questions that keep Faye's mother from a peaceful death.