At the center of the novel is a private investigator named Archie Lightman. Archie and his partner Delia Sanchez stumble upon a pattern of killings in which the victims are all criminals who---in an age of rampant plea bargaining---are often too lightly punished for their crimes. The investigation leads them to a support group modeled along the lines of a traditional 12-step program called COSOVO, Circle of Survivors of Violent Offenses. Its members the surviving kin of murdered loved ones.

Roger Witt is one of the members of the group, his life utterly ruined . . . first by a wanton criminal act that takes the life of a loved one, and later by an ineffectual justice system. He is thus doubly afflicted with derangements that follow in the wake of terrible losses. And he becomes vulnerable to Candace Morgan, the charismatic leader of COSOVO, who gradually grooms certain members to become murderers themselves, offering them the supposed healing balm of a vengeful 13th step. Meanwhile, Archie is experiencing his own thoughts of revenge. He recently received an anonymous letter that rekindles unresolved questions about the circumstances of his mother’s death decades earlier.

Was it suicide, was it homicide? All Archie knows is it wasn’t an accident. Will he succumb to the lure of the 13th Step?

This work of literary crime fiction explores how unrelenting grief can drive us to do things we never thought imaginable.