Gregor Demarkian

Stephen Fox may be a moron, but he may also be America's next president. The dimwitted legislator is just smart enough to know when to smile for the camera. But two women stand in the way of his campaign: his mistress and his wife, who has never recovered from the death of their daughter, a pain she manages by devoting herself to fundraising for children with Down syndrome.

Since Father Tibor Kasparian escaped the Soviet Union, he has done his best to keep his philosophy to himself - not out of fear, but because he knows that few people could stomach an honest account of life under Stalinism. When he gets an invitation to spend a semester teaching philosophy at Independence College, Kasparian hesitates, but his friend Gregor Demarkian, a former FBI investigator, convinces him to accept. They will both wish he had decided to stay away.

Twelve years ago, Chester Morton disappeared from his hometown in New York, leaving no trace and never to be heard from again. For the past twelve years, his mother has kept the search for her son alive by hounding every law enforcement agency she can get to listen. Now, Chester's body is finally found - hanging from the very billboard that has been advertising his disappearance.

In Waldorf Pines, ostentation and pretension are the order of the day. But even by local standards, Martha Heydrich is a stone cold pain. She's the stay-at-home wife of a very rich husband, into everybody's business and rumored to be having an affair with a local teenager, Michael Platte. One morning she seemingly vanishes, and that night her husband returns home to find the pool house ablaze. Once the fire is extinguished, police discover two bodies - one is Michael Platte and the other is presumed to be Martha....

Alwych is the stereotypical old money Connecticut beach town... and Chapin Waring is the worst thing that ever happened to it. She was from one of the richest families in Alwych until thirty years ago when the young debutante was revealed to a bank robber and a murderer. She disappeared, but Alwych has never forgotten her, or let her friends and family forget. So when, after being spotted around town, Chapin turns up dead - stabbed to death in her family's old home - it's baffling.

When Father Tibor is then arrested on murder charges, it tears at the very foundation of Demarkian's world. While Gregor has very strict rules about for whom and under what conditions he will consult, all those rules go by the wayside. Demarkian is now a man possessed, and his one goal is to find out what really happened and who is really responsible for the murder Father Tibor is charged with.