On Roosevelt Island, a strip of land in New York City's East River, stands as abandoned nineteenth-century smallpox asylum, "The Deadhouse, where the afflicted were shipped off to die. It's a gruesome bit of history perhaps best forgotten. But for Alexander Cooper, it may be the key to a shocking murder that cuts deeper than the arctic cold front gripping the city. A respected university professor is dead - strangled and dumped in an elevator shaft. And as Cooper and her close detective friend Mike Chapman scramble for answers, they make a shocking discovery: a piece of paper, found on the lifeless body of Professor Lola Dakota, that reads The Deadhouse....
