Gravestone: P.M. Carlson

Deputy Marty Hopkins has her hands full with her nine-year-old daughter and her vagrant husband. And then there is the horrible murder of local musician David Goldstein - the scene marked with a charred cross - the calling card of the Ku Klux Klan. But her boss steers her to a routine investigation - that of an elderly, addled judge who claims his long-missing daughter is plotting his death. But then a hint from the judge's wife and a tip from an eccentric biologist leads Marty to a cave deep in the Indiana limestone. A shocking discovery there links to the murder of Goldstein - and this followed by another racially motivated and brutal murder and then the kidnapping of a grandmother. Are the KKK making plans for the ultimate conflagration? Marty is drawn back to the caves for a harrowing confrontation - trapped underground and alone with terrible fears and horrific secrets that cannot bear the light of earth. Cover art by Marc Burckhardt.