It should have been his case. But the LAPD brass are all over the crime scene so fast that Detective Harry Bosch scarcely gets a look at the body before the case is taken out of his hands. The corpse in the motel room is identified as that of a narcotics officer who'd been missing for several days. Rumor has it that Internal Affairs had been after him, that he'd crossed over, fronting a new drug called black ice that has infiltrated from Mexico. As the media mount a frenzy of speculation, the police department hastily declares the death a suicide. Bosch isn't so sure. The note - "I found out who I was" - is cryptic at best. The motel room has clearly been wiped clean of all fingerprints except the victim's. And the cop's widow, a strong and lovely woman who blames herself for not knowing her husband better, brings out the idealist in Harry. He starts his own investigation, working without authorization or backup, and it takes him deep into the L.A. night and then across the Mexican border to Mexicali. The dead narc's childhood in the Mexicali barrio is one of many keys Bosch must turn as he plunges into mysteries of identity and enters a game far more complex and lethal than just drug smuggling.