There have been four celebrity murders already. Now it's up to Lieutenant Donal Riordan to make sure that Tristopolis isn't the scene of a fifth. But the necropolis's vast underground network is already mobilizing for a battle of epic proportions against a powerful death cult whose dark influence reaches up to the highest echelons of Tristopolis's elite. Riordan's only hope is an unlikely alliance with a para-live female agent as they hunt--both aboveground and below--among gargoyles and zombies, spirit slaves and assassins, for the killers even the dead have reason to fear.