"John Connolly returns with a prequel that goes back to the very beginning of Private Investigator Charlie Parker's astonishing career with his first terrifying case"-- Provided by publisher.

It is 1997, and someone is slaughtering young women in Burdon County, Arkansas. But no one in the Dirty South wants to admit it. In an Arkansas jail cell sits a former NYPD detective, stricken by grief. He is mourning the death of his wife and child, and searching in vain for their killer. Obsessed with avenging his lost family, his life is about to take a shocking turn. Witness the becoming of Charlie Parker. -- adapted from jacket