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When private eye V.I. Warshawski is called out to a derelict drug house in a rural town just south of Chicago she discovers something she wasn't expecting: the mutilated corpse of a man dumped in a cornfield.

It is a discovery that throws V.I. into the fascinating world of physics and invention: a design which sparked the construction of the computer as we know it, the development of nuclear weapons, the wonder of Newton's prisms, and a train of dramatic events that occurred in war-time Vienna over seventy years ago.

With a range of suspects too scared to open up, V.I. must delve deep into the past to find clues. Someone holds the answers to her questions - someone who will stop at nothing to prevent the truth from resurfacing.

Packed with Paretsky's masterfully crafted suspense and offering an illuminating insight into some of the greatest scientific developments of the twentieth century, this is set to be V.I.'s most enlightening - and exhilarating - adventure yet.