With its gracious homes and tree-lined streets, Ansley Park is one of Atlanta�s most desirable neighborhoods. But in one gleaming mansion, in a teenager�s lavish bedroom, a girl has been savagely murdered. And in the hallway, her horrified mother stands amid shattered glass, having killed her daughter�s attacker with her bare hands. Detective Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is here only to do a political favor; the murder site belongs to the Atlanta police. But Trent soon sees something that the cops are missing, something in the trail of blood, in a matrix of forensic evidence, and in the eyes of the shell-shocked mother. Within minutes, Trent is taking over the case � and adding another one to it. He is sure that another teenage girl is missing, and that a killer is on the loose. Armed with only fleeting clues, teamed with a female cop who has her own personal reasons for hating him, Trent has enemies all around him � and a gnawing feeling that this case, which started in the best of homes, is cutting quick and deep through the ruins of perfect lives broken wide-open: where human demons emerge with a vengeance.