Publisher's Synopsis
1977. Disco was blasting across the airwaves and the Bee Gees and Donna Summer reigned supreme. Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency after the debacle of the Nixon administration. Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind hit movie screens and birthed a new exploration of cinematic science fiction while Saturday Night Fever became the biggest dancing movie of all time. Elvis Presley, the King of Rock & Roll, died at age 42. Egypt and Israel made significant progress in peace talks. Serial killer David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, was captured in New York while another infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy, was still cutting a swath of murders across the country. People were still adjusting to the end of the Vietnam war and looking forward to a new prosperity and social stability. In Providence, Rhode Island, private investigator and Scottish expatriate Nick MacKenzie is inexplicably drawn into a crime mystery when two skeletons fall out of a demolished old house and an investigation opens that reaches back to the era of the Great Depression and Prohibition. As Nick digs deeper into the crime, he uncovers evidence that that takes on a personal meaning. Along the way he acquires new and very unexpected friends as well as an enemy that will do anything to keep the past hidden, even kill. Through strange circumstances Nick also acquires a young foster son with a hidden past. As the mysteries and discoveries progress Nick and his circle become not only fast friends but an odd sort of family that redefines the very concept. He is joined by a gung-ho cop whose professional aspirations take a shocking turn; an elderly man who knows more than he's saying about the lynchpin year of 1933; an old woman who is far more than she presents to the world; a scion of a mob family that seeks to forge a decent future; and a young lawyer whose personal demons lead him to an unexpected life path. As the end games of the mysteries count down to their climaxes, the only question is - who will survive, and at what cost?
