The truth always hurts. This truth kills.

Used to defending an unpleasant parade of mob enforcers, two-bit hoods and other riffraff, Victor Carl -- lawyer, loser and hapless hero of HOSTILE WITNESS -- has a new case. A terrified young woman has offered him an unusual yet substantial proposition: to prove that the recent suicide of Philadelphia heiress Jacqueline Shaw was not a suicide at all, but murder.

On Philadelphia's posh Main Line, Carl plunges into an eerie shadow world where events buried deep in the past exert a terrible weight in the present. Carl realizes too late that he's in way over his head as he races against time to collect his fee and get out alive. Edging closer to the truth, he learns firsthand that the most terrifying darkness lies not in the heart of the jungle but in the soul of man.

© Copyright 2003 by William Lashner. Reprinted with permission by ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins. All rights reserved.