Two bodies found by the banks of a flooded river. The authorities call it murder-suicide, but Marius Besshaven doesn't agree. The man they're blaming had too much to live for. And there's the burned man. A man whose past--shadow and flame, abduction and torture--may hold the key to the investigation.

Marius is obsessed with finding the truth--driven by the traumas of youth, the pathological need for definitive answers. His quest will plunge him into a deadly game of cat and mouse with a killer more isolated and sadistic than anyone ever suspected, a madman who may take from him all...