The corpse juts from the heaping bulge of the landfill. Milky white flesh laid bare by the front loader's blade. Naked. Female. Face down in the garbage.
When three bodies turn up in a landfill outside of Philadelphia, FBI profiler Violet Darger heads to Pennsylvania to investigate. Right away there's a major complication. The emaciated corpses appear to have been starved to death.
Darger arrives in time for the autopsies. Watches withered bodies laid out on the stainless steel slabs of the morgue, their faces crusted with sandy soil, skin pulled taut around knobby cheekbones.
What kind of a person could carry out such harsh acts? Figuring out the warped psychology might be the key to solving the case.
Forensic evidence helps Darger trace the bodies to a particular dumpster in West Philadelphia. It's the first step down the long, dark passage this case leads her through.
Because the city is full of deadly secrets -- horrors waiting beneath the surface.
In her most shocking and bizarre case yet, the darkness comes for Darger in a way it never has before. Surrounds her. Envelops her. Will she find her way back to the light?