A woman missing for ten years.
An artist obsessed with a unique, definitive masterpiece.
A serial killer on death row.
A recurring number: 29.
Veronika Evans, a much discussed press photographer of noble causes, definitely does not want to collaborate with the NYPD: she still sees the trail of blood from the last investigation and feels the horror of the truth. To pick up the pieces, she flew to Greenland to document the silent slaughter of seals, but the past reaches her even on the other side of the world. Fisher, the chief of the Detective Bureau, needs her in New York: the corpse of a woman, made-up and in evening dress, has been found sitting beneath the stone lions in front of the New York Public Library. A crime scene that resembles a contemporary installation. It can’t be a coincidence: in a short time the library will be the site for an international artistic event twinned with the Venice Biennial. Fisher needs an observing eye other than his, and Veronika is on the VIP list. Meanwhile, the bodies become two, then three, all with the same modus operandi. The message is precise but indecipherable. Actually, there is a connection: a woman missing for more than ten years. But it leads to a dead end, another serial killer, known as the Tailor, who is about to be executed with a lethal injection. What links Cain – as Fisher calls the unidentified killer - to the Tailor? The only recurring element is the number 29, a date that becomes a menace in New York, in a maximum-security prison in Virginia and in Venice. The day of vendetta. The day of the execution. The day of the massacre.