This is a book about the beauty and complexity of the human soul, about god, love and justice, and yet you can lose yourself in it as if it were a dream. You will be transported to New York of the Belle Epoque, to a city clarified by a siege of unprecedented winters. One night, Peter Lake-orphan, master-mechanic, and master second story man attemps to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side. Though he thinks the house is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the affair between the middle aged Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl who is dying. Because of a love that at first he cannot fully, understand, Peter a simple and uneducated man, will be driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His greatest struggle, in a city ever alight with its own energy and beset by winter, is a truly beautiful and extraordinary story.