The panoramic novel takes place in the 1870s, and focuses on a writer named William Rackham who is married to the sickly, depressed Agnes but is so enamored of a prostitute named Sugar that he hires her as governess for his daughter. Around these characters, the tumult of Victorian London is revealed as the story spirals into a tale of ambition, love, and revenge. A New York Times Notable Book for 2002.

Alexandra Cooper is the assistant district attorney in charge of Manhattan's sex crime prosecution. Alex is shocked one morning to read her own obituary in the headlines, when it is really movie star Isabella Lascar who has been killed--in Alex's summer home on Martha's Vineyard. As a prosecutor who has tried many high-profile cases, Alex has made a lot of enemies. The search for Isabella's killer goes on while Alex continues with witness and victim interviews, serial rape investigations, and late night meetings with cops and detectives that are as much a part of her life as uptown social rounds.