First published 2010
Three master detectives gather in Philadelphia's Downtown Club with a mission that consumes their lives. William Fleisher, a former FBI agent, Frank Bender, a sculptor who reconstructs faces of the dead, and Richard Walter, an eccentric profiler, founded the Vidocq Society after growing frustrated with countless unsolved murders. Each month, they invite forensic experts from around the world to their private dining room. Over gourmet meals, they dissect cold cases that have stumped police for years. The trio travels far beyond their Victorian meeting place to hunt killers who thought they had escaped justice forever. They pursue the murderer of a wealthy man's son, track a serial killer who removes victims' faces, and close in on a child killer who has lived freely for fifty decades. Their work demands they confront true evil while wrestling with their own flawed natures and personal demons. The three men find purpose in their quest for justice in a world where the innocent suffer and killers walk free.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, personal-demons
Setting: Downtown Club, Philadelphia, Vidocq Society
Period: 20th-century
426 pages · Hardcover · Gotham
Content warnings: death, graphic-violence, murder