When the police investigation into the gruesome murder of a gentle retired professor stalls, two friends of the dead man plead with PI Martin Preuss to find out what happened. The twisting trail leads him across the entire metropolitan Detroit region, from a peace fellowship center, a Buddhist temple, and a sprawling homeless encampment into a treacherous world of long-buried family secrets, the anguished relations between parents and children, the gathering storm of domestic terrorism-and a surprising encounter with a woman who offers the lonely detective a refuge from his isolation. This seventh Martin Preuss mystery is a powerful, gripping novel of guilt and redemption.