Itβs 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 evidence β itβs business as usual for the Unitβs cantankerous founding partners, Arthur Bryant and John May. But this time they have an eyewitness. According to 12-year-old Luke Tripp, the killer was a cape-clad highwayman atop a black stallion.
As implausible as the boyβs story sounds, Bryant and May take it seriously when βThe Highwaymanβ is spotted again, striking a dramatic pose at the scene of his next outlandish murder. Whatever the killerβs 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 βHighwayman Fever,β Bryant and May, along with the newest member of the Unit, Mayβs 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, theyβre going to have to use every orthodoxβand unorthodoxβmeans at their disposal, including myth, witchcraft, and the psychogeographic history of the cityβs βmonsters,β past and present.
And if one unsolvable crime werenβt enough, this case has disturbing links to a decades-old killing spree that nearly destroyed the partnership of Bryant and May once beforeβ¦and may again. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is one murder away from being closed down for good β and that murder could be their own.
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