In John Meaney's follow-up to the much-acclaimed Bone Song, a cop in a morbidly lush necropolis crosses the barrier between life and death to avenge the murder of his lover--a woman whose heart now beats in his chest.... Tristopolitan police lieutenant Donal Riordan returned from the dead for one purpose: to stop the killer who took not only his life but his reason for living it. But first he must penetrate a secret cabal known as the Black Circle, whose stranglehold on the city's elite is preparation for a magical coup d'état fueled by a sacrifice of unprecedented bloodshed. At the center of this ring of evil is the man responsible for his lover's murder--a man Donal has already had to kill once before.