A killer inspired by a master of the macabre. A detective tracking the tell-tales signs of his crimes. A mystery that binds them in an ingenious nightmare.

The crime scene: a human skull impaled on a tree, trailing a colored ribbon. The twist was the gold-painted scarab. Special Agent Elizabeth Taylor Hewitt recognizes the tableau-only the first in a series of slayings honoring the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and committed by a madman known only as The Raven.

Anticipating The Raven's next move, Hewitt seeks the help of her former lover, an expert on Poe. It's a race against time as they struggle to understand the motives of the killer-by delving into the twisted mind of literature's dark genius. But Hewitt herself becomes a pawn in The Raven's triumphant endgame: a magnificent and final homage...for Edgar.

A brilliant tale of modern-day detection-and a case that echoes one of literature's darkest imaginations.