Blue Mag­ic, the lat­est design­er drug linked to a rash of over­dos­es, might explain the nee­dle mark on the arm of a young woman found dead in her Kansas City apart­ment. But when Star reporter Rich Aza­di­an digs deep­er, the clues point to a far more explo­sive sto­ry: MaryLee Stock was a spe­cial prot€g€e of evan­gel­i­cal mega­pas­tor and pow­er bro­ker Cobalt Beck­er, who is poised to deliv­er his fol­low­ers and the pres­i­den­cy to a fire­brand right-wing sen­a­tor in the next elec­tion. When Aza­di­an sets out to prove that MaryLee’s death was no acci­dent — and that she may have been car­ry­ing Becker’s genet­i­cal­ly enhanced baby — the stakes become life itself. In 2023 Amer­i­ca — bank­rupt, vio­lent­ly divid­ed by the cul­ture wars, and behold­en to archri­val Chi­na — the rules of the game are com­pli­cat­ed. With the dan­ger mount­ing, the dead bod­ies of young women pil­ing up, Chi­nese agents cir­cling, and the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Nation­al Com­pet­i­tive­ness mov­ing in to quash his inves­ti­ga­tion, Azadian’s only option is to go rogue, assem­ble a team of bril­liant mis­fits like him­self, and begin the fight of his life to find out who is killing these women and why, and if any oth­ers like them may still be alive.