Syracuse, upstate New York. The "Salt City." An apartment building on the edge of The Projects - and Anne Malloy dies, flying out of a sixth floor window, an apparent suicide, while Mark Cornell watches. Mark was there for a purpose, his part-time gig being to snap incriminating photos for a divorce lawyer who happily takes cases over the phone. Watching the apartment was Mark's assignment. But this assignment has a problem: Mark learns that "Anne Malloy" had died months before, leaving behind a grieving husband. So who is this woman? It's 1976, before cell phones, internet, and all the easy ways of satisfying curiosities, so Mark Cornell's search for a name to give the victim makes him a foot soldier slogging personally through the facts. And, as those facts pile up, Mark discovers that he really shouldn't be playing detective, stumbling across the thin line between commerce and crime . . . in the Salt City.