In the early 1900's a small city near Boston is famous for being the largest leather manufacturing area in the world. But as the century progresses it's becoming known for something it can't live with—the multiple murders of innocent teenage girls over a period of 60 years. Some of the girls are viciously molested, others brutally strangled, and most are deposited in the same location, near midtown, in a narrow, factory-polluted river. Is there a reason? Is there a message? One intelligent investigator spends much of his career hunting for the answers.