The fourth gripping novel in the original and authentic crime series featuring Carl Houseman and his team.
It's a bright October morning and Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman is not due on shift for several hours. And then the phone rings. A woman is dead; suspected suicide. The dispatcher can't reveal the details: it's a Code 61. Something serious has happened over at the Mansion and he's not allowed to ask too many questions over the radio.
When Carl arrives at the huge, mysterious house isolated in the woodlands above the Mississippi, he can see why his colleagues are nervous. The young woman lying dead in the bath on the second floor happens to be Edie, the melancholy niece of Carl's boss, Sheriff Ridgeway, and she's tried to commit suicide before. But something about the body's vicious neck wounds tells Carl this case isn't going to be that simple.
As Carl and his feisty partner, FBI Special Agent Hester Gorse, delve deeper into the secrets of the Mansion and its young residents they uncover a terrifying mystery that will shock the American midwest.
