The City is safe. We hear it every day, from real estate agents, to moms in the park. But with shocking regularity, another young woman's photograph is splashed on the front pages of newspapers across the country because one tiny mistake can lead to murder.

A college student leaves a bar with boys she meets on spring break in a luxury vacation paradise. A young woman tells her friends to leave without her because she's going to stay for one more drink. A girl's car is towed when she parks illegally to go clubbing and she finds herself walking alone on the West Side Highway. Four o'clock in the morning, when the celebrity-infested clubs are closing, is no time to be on your own.

A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, Alafair Burke now teaches criminal law at Hofstra Law School. The daughter of acclaimed crime writer James Lee Burke, she is a graduate of Stanford Law School.

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