An ancient brotherhood meets annually in the back room of a swank Manhattan restaurant, a fraternity created in secret to celebrate life by celebrating its dead. Matthew Scudder, ex-cop and ex-boozer, has been asked to investigate a baffling thirty-year run of suicides and suspiciously random accidents that has thinned the ranks of this select group of gentlemen. He finds too many secrets, too many places for a maddeningly patient serial killer to hide.