At the start of Martinez's gripping second thriller (after 2005's Most Wanted), New York federal prosecutor Melanie Vargas is summoned at two in the morning a week before Christmas to a sadly bizarre death scene on Park Avenue. The teenage stepdaughter of Wall Street mogul and would-be U.S. senator James Seward has died of a heroin overdose, along with a fellow student at a posh East Side girls' school.

"Kate, Aubrey, and Jenny. They first met as college roommates and soon became inseparable, even though they are as different as three women can be. Twenty years later, one of them is standing at the edge of a bridge, and someone else is urging them to jump. How did things come to this? As the novel cuts back and forth between their college years and their adult years, you see the exact reasons why these women love and hate each other--but can feelings...

About to take a controversial rap star to trial for a past crime, Melanie Vargas receives an important piece of information from his lawyer. On the steps of New York City's federal courthouse, he tells her that his client may have had ties to a wanted fugitive. Moments later, a powerful car bomb blows the lawyer to pieces, with Melanie only steps away. As shocking as the murder is, it has other repercussions for Melanie. Her relationship with the...

Young, ambitious Melanie Vargas, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan gets the big break of her career almost by mistake: she's pushing her baby daughter through the nighttime streets when she walks into a crime scene.