Bert Marchetti, an old friend and an SFPD homicide inspector, has asked Cree to help investigate a skeleton recently unearthed in the foundation of a Victorian home--apparently a victim of the 1906 earthquake. The bones' peculiar characteristics have intrigued the forensic anthropology team--they call the skeleton Wolfman. Who was he, what caused his deformities, and how did he end up in that grand hilltop home? Cree's research takes her back to the glory days of the Barbary Coast, old San Francisco's infamous red-light district. As she assists in the forensics, she also begins to realize that Marchetti's involvement with the case is more complex than he has let on. Her narrative is illuminated by entries from the 1889 diary of Lydia Schweitzer, a Victorian woman with her own secrets--and her own compelling interest in the person who would come to be known as the wolfman.--From publisher description.