Title Page

Dedication

For Miriam

The footnote Queen, without attribution,
in the year you weren’t writing,
(Oh, except for this essay on Shanghai, that one on
Benjamin, a little piece on theory)

In the year you’re writing,
Let me have one back

Acknowledgments

THANKS

As always, many people provided help in creating this story. Dr. Robert Kirschner of the University of Chicago gave me much helpful forensic advice—even if his facts forced me to abandon an early draft of the manuscript and start over. Professor Shelley Bannister of Northeastern Illinois University explained much about Illinois prisons to me, including the law regarding prison manufacture. Attorney Margaret Byrne was helpful with specifics on treatment of inmates in the Illinois prison system. She also suggested the unique structure of my mythical prison in Coolis. Angela Andrews kindly and bravely shared her personal experiences with me.

On other technical matters, Sandy Weiss of Packer Engineering gave me much useful information, especially on the various cameras V. I. makes use of in this story. Jesus Mata provided Spanish translations for me; Mena di Mario did the same for Italian. Rachel Lyle suggested what became the main impetus to writing this novel. Jonathan Paretsky as always was most helpful with details on legal matters.

This is a work of fiction, and no resemblance is intended between any characters in it and any real people, whether living or dead or never known to me. The combined prison-jail complex at Coolis in this novel does not exist in reality anywhere in America as far as I know, but I believe it is a plausible one. However, details on treatment of prisoners in Coolis were drawn from the Human Rights Watch report All Too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons.

Chapter 1: Media Circus

1 Media Circus

Lacey Dowell clutched her crucifix, milky breasts thrust forward, as she backed away from her unseen assailant. Tendrils of red hair escaped from her cap; with her eyes shut and her forehead furrowed she seemed to have crossed the line from agony to ecstasy. It was too much emotion for me at close quarters.

I turned around, only to see her again, red hair artlessly tangled, breasts still thrust forward, as she accepted the Hasty Pudding award from a crowd of Harvard men. I resolutely refused to look at the wall on my right, where her head was flung back as she laughed at the witticisms of the man in the chair opposite. I knew the man and liked him, which made me squirm at his expression, a kind of fawning joviality. Murray Ryerson was too good a reporter to prostitute himself like this.

“What got into him? Or more to the point, what got into me, to let him turn my bar into this backslapping media circus?”