In rural, impoverished Burgoyne County, New York, a pattern of strange deaths begins to emerge: adolescent boys and girls are found murdered, their corpses left hanging in gruesome, ritualistic fashion. Senior law enforcement officials are quick to blame a serial killer, but their efforts to apprehend this criminal are peculiarly ineffective. Meanwhile, in the county's small town of Surrender, Trajan Jones, a psychological profiler, and Michael Li, a trace evidence expert, teach online courses in profiling and forensic science from Jones' family farm. Alone and armed mainly with their wits, protected only by farmhands and Jones' unusual ''pet,'' the outcast pair are secretly called in to consult on the case.

In Caleb Carr's fascinating tale of the kingdom of Broken, legend meets history, new gods collide with old, science defies all expectation, virtue comes in many guises, and one noble soldier struggles to save a fortress city besieged by enemies within and without.