Nathan Stein is the son of one of Gotham's more shadowy and successful lawyers. The book opens with the corpse of a beautiful young woman, Nathan's secretary and lover, washing ashore, and tracks Nathan's reaction and lack of reaction to this loss and other attendant traumas over the next 48 hours.

Madness, murder, moodiness and mayhem in New York City. * A magnificently atmospheric, liquid murder mystery set over a harsh midwinter day and night in New York. * Nathan Stein is the son, and partner, of one of Gotham's more shadowy, pugilistic and successful lawyers. Nathan has also inherited his father's weakness for philandering and for moral slipperiness. The book opens with the corpse of a beautiful young woman, Nathan's secretary and lover, washing ashore, and tracks Nathan's reaction and lack of reaction to this loss and other attendant traumas over the next 48 hours. * Essentially a portrait of a maddened man, disoriented by disloyalty and self-disgust, lurching towards redemption but failing, Blood Acre is a powerful follow-up to Peter Landesman's highly acclaimed first novel, The Raven, one of the most promising literary debuts of 1997.