The murders begin with a naked, male body impaled on a stake in the forest. Dana Wilde, an army brat and former homicide detective with Metropolitan Police Department in Wash. DC has been the Sheriff of James County, West Virginia for only a few weeks when a blood-thirsty serial killer calling himself the Disciple strikes in and around the town of St. James. His MO is bizarre, beyond anything Wilde has encountered before-except perhaps in her nightmares. People start dying fast including two of Wilde's officers. The media and the FBI get involved. A New York cop - an ex-lover of Wilde's from six years earlier, shows up with a case of his own. Another killer arrives with an agenda of her own. She is young, beautiful; attributes she uses to deadly effect. When it looks like Wilde has the name of the killer, things get personal. And nothing seems to be what it appears. It's the workweek from hell.