The violent and senseless death of Malcolm Vaughn, shot and killed by a stranger in front of his wife and eight-year-old son, has a profound impact on their lives as Malcolm's best friend struggles to help them deal with their grief and anger.

Jennet Stearne's father hangs witches for a living in Restoration England. But when this precocious child witnesses the horrifying death of her beloved Aunt Isobel, unjustly executed as a sorceress, she makes it her life's mission to bring down the Parliamentary Witchcraft Act. A self-educated "natural philosopher," Jennet is inspired in her quest by a single sentence in a cryptic letter from Isaac Newton: "It so happens that in the Investigations...