The cerebral and principled forensic pathologist Dr. Bodhi King confronts his most perplexing case yet.
When Bodhi King finds the first dead bird on the beach, he chalks it up to natural causes. Then he finds a second. And a third. He's camping on the Eastern Shore to re-center himself and recommit to Buddhism, not to play veterinary pathologist. But his tradition values all lives equally, and there appears to be an avian serial killer on the loose. Or is there?
Bodhi volunteers to uncover what's killing the birds. What he discovers leads him to an abandoned military bunker. There, a dysfunctional family feud, a counterfeiter of communications equipment, a dying man, and a cache of seventy-five-year-old crystals provide the answer he seeks—and put his life in danger.
Cut off from the outside world, Bodhi pieces together the puzzle.
But in order to bring the truth to light and save himself, he'll have to reconcile his quest for nonattachment with his very real need for help and decide just how committed he is to walking the Noble Eightfold Path.