District Attorney Tony Fraser,loves the law, and no one is better at his job. But now he's facing perhaps the most difficult case of his career. He has to prosecute a vicious, amoral killer accused of committing acts so bloodthirsty, so violent, that by their very nature they provide an iron-dad defense: not guilty by'reason of insanity.

Neither the city nor the people described in this story are real. They have no actual counterparts and must not be seen as depictions of real places or real people. They are, from first to last, imaginary. Likewise, no actual crimes are presented in this story. The crimes and consequences that occupy these fictional people are absolutely without connection to any true events. Finally, let me be specific about the legal setting of this story. While I have drawn on my knowledge of the law and experiences as a lawyer, I have not used real people involved in criminal law as models for characters, or real events for stages on which to set the action of this story. Because this is a story about violent and bizarre crime, it necessarily includes characters who are judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, and members of law enforcement agencies. These are also people of the imagination, as are the other characters, and not actual judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, or policemen.