Attorney and ex-cop Stone Barrington is invited to a party where he meets a pretty Assistant District Attorney. They hit it off right away and she invites him to her apartment. When they get there, she calls out for Chinese and Stone runs to the restaurant to pick up dinner. He returns to find his new friend dead on the floor, her throat slashed.

A day later, while Stone and his pal NYPD Lt. Dino Bachetti are sitting in Stone’s apartment they witness another murder, another throat slashing in an apartment across the courtyard. The killer gets away but he looks eerily familiar to both Stone and Dino. Herbert Mitteldorfer was arrested by Dino and Stone twelve years ago when the two men were partners on the force. Mitteldorfer had murdered his wife by slashing her throat. The problem is that Mitteldorfer is still in prison.

More people are attacked. An attempt is made on Dino’s wife, the daughter of a powerful Mafioso, but she is prepared and fires a shot at her assailant and thinks she may have nicked him. Then, as Stone’s old girlfriend prepares to open an art exhibit, a bomb rips through the gallery.

Stone’s girlfriend has had enough and leaves the country but Stone soon finds solace in the arms of beautiful Dolce Bianchi, Dino’s sister-in-law and the other daughter of the mob boss. Her father Eduardo Bianchi takes a liking to Stone and begins to feed him bits and pieces of information gleaned from the street that help Stone put together a better picture of the mysterious killer.

What keeps this book moving is the notion that the killer just has to be Herbert Mitteldorfer but he’s in prison. Then his sentence is commuted and he is released, a free man. He promptly drops out of sight without a trace.

Author Stuart Wood seems to like things in neat packages because he leaves no situation unexplained. Throughout this book he constantly ties up the loose ends so that everything makes sense and seems logical. I really like that aspect of Woods’ writing although I believe that Stone Barrington would get along just fine even if he had a few less sexual encounters.