When the first body is found, mutilated and strangled on the riverbank, homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano suspect yet another case of random urban violence. Until it happens again. And again. One by one, women are lured to the old Schuylkill River, their violent and increasingly staged deaths the only clues to the killer's twisted imagination. All are wearing oddly old-fashioned dresses, holding a prop of some kind. And each one seems to have a story to tell, speaking of nightmares that are not just the stuff of fairy tales ...Desperately, Byrne and Balzano try to uncover the fragile link between the murders, until they realise they are up against two different kinds of evil. A ruthless killer is preying upon the citizens of Philadelphia. And someone else is killing the suspects.