Two young women. One, Rachel Reiling, an investigative reporter, the other, Sally Kravitz, a private investigator. Uneasy allies from very different walks of life, they work as a team to connect the murders of a small town drug dealer, a smart, engaging, fatally flawed thief, and the tangled, political, increasingly dark goings on at a prestigious prep school.

Joe Gunther and his team of investigators at the VBI - the Vermont Bureau of Investigation - are officially assigned to the two homicides. While they set about solving them, Sally Kravitz and Rachel Reiling - sometime working with the police, sometimes against - pool their talents and take advantage of their civilian status to go where the police cannot, from working undercover at Thorndike Academy, to having clandestine meetings with criminals well acquainted with Vermont's unexpectedly illicit underbelly.

And there is a third, much darker element at work. The common thread linking all this death and chaos is hard at work sowing mayhem to protect its vicious roots.