A hospital psychiatrist feels he's being stalked by a young patient. For as long as possible, he convinces himself that the young man is harmless, but when the doctor's daughter disappears and the patient goes missing, too, he calls on Espinosa for help. Soon after, the patient turns up dead.
     With his death begins a chain of other deaths, each more mysterious than the one that preceded it, each seemingly linked to the doctor and his former patient. As Espinosa learns more about the doctor's history, it becomes harder to discern the stalker from the stalked, reality from fantasy, and the sane from the diabolical. In this installment of the "seductive, fascinating" (The New York Times Book Review) series, the sultry maze of Rio de Janeiro's streets conspires against Espinosa, confounding his judgment, stymieing his search, and, somewhere, concealing a murderer.