Local benefactress and celebrated biographer Mary-Jo Stanton is a
supplicant to death -- left lifeless on her knees in a patch of
daffodils, a barbaric religious implement wrapped tightly around her
neck. A clergyman has approached Peter McGarr, requesting that the Chief
Superintendent quietly investigate this outrage that occurred at
Barbastro, the slain grand lady's compoundlike Dublin estate. Murder is
McGarr's business, but this one might be his undoing, as it draws him
ever-closer to Opus Dei. A secret order of religious zealots devoted to
enforcing the Lord's edicts no matter what the cost in money -- or human
life -- it has ensnared the dedicated policeman in its lethal web. And
now its madness is reaching out across a century to touch the place
Peter McGarr is most vulnerable: the precious heart of his own adored
family.