In a city where every form of crime and vice flourishes, corruption is king, fabulous wealth stands on the shoulders of unspeakable want, and there are no limits to larceny. It is New York in 1871, where the disinherited son of a monstrous millionaire sees his dead father alive - and sets off a train of mystery and revelation that takes the reader into the darkest heart of evil and avarice in a thriller that only E.L. Doctorow could have written.