Reporter Natalie Joday's career is at a crossroads. She thought she'd seen the last of cops and courtrooms -- but if she agrees to join the Bergen Evening Star's Crime Bureau, such will be her daily fare. Natalie dodges the issue by getting involved in a newsroom mystery: who is sending anonymous letters to the Star's elderly (and easily rattled) advice columnist? And why? They are such peculiar letters, full of riddles and hints of past injustice. It's all a game to Natalie and her psychologist friend, Rebecca Elias, until the solutions reveal the murder of an alcoholic bankrupt, a man whose political career was ruined by the Star some 20 years before.Finding the body of paranoid computer hacker Armand Vitek helps Natalie decide about her career: she wants whoever removed Armand's face to pay. But when the trail of clues doubles back to the Star's corporate headquarters, the question becomes not if she should take the job, but if there be a newspaper left to work for?