Hands Of Glory (Laszlo Kreizler x OC)

New York is a city full of secrets, but the Hudson has begun to give up its dead. Every week for six consecutive weeks, a severed hand has washed ashore along the Hudson River. For most, they are a morbid curiosity. For Adeline Endicott, they are something far more chilling. She is certain one of them belongs to her missing sister, Elizabeth.

With the police stalling and the trail growing colder, Adeline refuses to wait for another grisly discovery. Determined to reclaim her sister's story from the river's current, she seeks help from the only man whose mind might match the darkness they face: Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, the city's infamous alienist.

Intrigued by Adeline's fierce resolve, and disturbed by the implications of the case, Laszlo agrees to investigate, enlisting Sara Howard's newly formed detective agency to pull at every thread. But Adeline insists on more than updates. She wants to be part of the hunt. Part of the truth. Part of whatever it takes to stop the monster who took her sister-and she has a primary suspect.

Adeline has never trusted her brother-in-law, and her certainty that he is involved hardens into fear with every passing day. Complicating it all is her own marriage: a stagnant union with a man rendered inattentive and bitter after being swindled out of his livelihood. Disillusionment has settled over Adeline's life like soot on a windowsill, and she refuses to let it claim her sister as well.

Yet as the threat grows clearer, so does the fragile connection forming between Adeline and Laszlo, something tender blooming in the shadows of the investigation. To uncover what happened to Elizabeth, Adeline and Laszlo must confront not only the mind of a killer, but the cost of allowing their own guarded hearts to open. In a city where nothing stays buried forever, the truth may save them...or undo them entirely.