Lambs to the Slaughter

The Bronx doesn't forgive mistakes. Neither do its killers.The Bronx is full of places where people disappear.Detectives Roth and Hersch have spent years working the 41st Precinct. They know the streets, the gangs, the addicts, the violence-and how quickly a death can become just another file on a desk.Then a young woman's body washes up at Hunts Point.She has been beaten, raped, and strangled. At first, it appears to be another brutal killing in a borough that has learned to live with brutality.But she is not the first.Since January 2023, women have been turning up dead across the Bronx. Each was poor. Each was undocumented. Each had no identification, no family willing to come forward, and no one with the power to demand answers.Until now.This victim has fingerprints in the system.Following her trail pulls Roth and Hersch into a world far beyond the precinct: shell companies, predatory property deals, a secretive religious organization, and Xin Yue-the beautiful, unreadable manager of the Church of the Rapture of Jehova.At the center of it all is an address in Hunts Point: 739 Coster Street.A place with a secret worth killing for.And if Roth and Hersch uncover it, they may be next.