When Alan Russell writes his novels, he always plays the "what if" game: What if you were the son of a serial murderer and it suddenly appears to the world as if you are repeating your father's sordid history? What if you are the holder of a grim secret with international consequences, but telling that secret implicates you in the death of an innocent? What if you are a homicide detective trying to solve a murder case in which the only witness is a young woman who offers up clues in the forms of her exotic multiple personalities?