Ten Second Staircase

Its a crime tailor-made for the Peculiar Crimes Unit: a controversial artist is murdered and displayed as part of her own outrageous installation.

No suspects, no motive, no evidenceits business as usual for the Units cantankerous founding partners, Arthur Bryant and John May.

But this time they have an eyewitness. According to twelve-year-old Luke Tripp, the killer was a cape-clad highwayman atop a black stallion.

As implausible as the boys story sounds, Bryant and May take it seriously when The Highwayman is spotted again, striking a dramatic pose at the scene of his next outlandish murder.

Whatever the killers real identity, he seems intent on killing off a string of minor celebrities while becoming one himself.

As the tabloids look to make a quick bundle on Highwayman Fever, Bryant and May, along with the newest member of the Unit, Mays agoraphobic granddaughter, April, find themselves sorting out a case involving an unlikely combination of artistic rivalries, sleazy sex affairs, the Knights Templars, and street gang feuds.

To do it, theyre going to have to use every orthodoxand unorthodoxmeans at their disposal, including myth, witchcraft, and the psychogeographic history of the citys monsters, past and present.And if one unsolvable crime werent enough, this case has disturbing links to a decades-old killing spree that nearly destroyed the partnership of Bryant and May once beforeand may again.

The Peculiar Crimes Unit is one murder away from being closed down for goodand that murder could be their own.From the Hardcover edition.