In this reissue, anonymous letter writer, Will of the People, targets criminals and evil-doers the law cannot reach and kills them. His latest target has got one too many killers off a murder rap and so Attorney Whitfield, wanting the most stubborn PI in the Big Apple to watch his back, calls ex-acoholic, ex-cop Matt Scudder.

In this reissue, a young girl is killed, the prime suspect is found dead in his cell and the NYPD consider the case closed. Ex-cop Scudder, hired to look into the case by the girl's father is up to his neck in sleaze, corruption, religious cults and murderous lust. In New York's underbelly, children pay for their parents' most unspeakable sins.

Byrne and Susan Hollander stroll home from a concert on a fine summer's evening in New York. Some hours later, their daughter Kristin arrives home to discover her parents brutally killed and the house ransacked. She also finds she is now a very young millionaire. A few days later the police trace the two killers to an apartment in Coney Island and both are dead. One killed the other before turning the gun on himself. At least that's the way it looks. So that's that. Another case solved. But for Matt Scudder it's only the beginning. The more he looks into it, the more things look wrong to him....