Baltimore local Tess Monaghan thought she knew the Sugar House—the abandoned factory that remains a stubborn and defiant legacy of the city’s past—until a client named Ruthie asks the newspaperwoman-turned-p.i. to investigate a year-old “Jane Doe” murder and its grim aftermath. Ruthie’s low-life brother, Henry, confessed to killing a teenage runaway over a bottle of glue—and, a month into his prison term, met the same fate as his victim. Following a precious few tantalizing clues, Tess’s hunt for the truth is leading her from Baltimore’s exclusive Inner Harbor to the city’s seediest neighborhoods—a hunt that turns deadly with the shocking discovery of the runaway’s true identity. Suddenly, a supposedly solved murder case is turning up newer, fresher corpses and newer, scarier versions of the Sugar House—places that look sweet and safe . . . but only from the outside.