Strange and Sinister Path

There is nothing unusual about a young Catholic girl from the Bronx winding up raped, beaten, strangled and decapitated — unless she winds up that way in Lefthand Canyon, in the Colorado Rockies, where there hasn't been a murder since 1922. Then it's unusual enough to become a problem for the sheriff of Lee County. And when he finds no blood at the scene and no physical evidence, it becomes more than a problem. It becomes a headache — for five long years.

That's when he bats it back to the Bronx, to the 43rd precinct and right onto Detectives Stone and Dehan's desk. Let them deal with it.

But Lee County is one of the remotest parts of the USA, and Stone finds his pool of suspects limited, to say the least. Was it Greg, the tough, plain-talking rancher? Was it Ingrid and Alfredo, the bitter, puritanical in-laws? Or somebody in the off-grid, dope farming community at the Shack?

Or was it somebody else, somebody completely different…?