In a deserted tenement in an occupied city, two dead bodies lie on a dusty floor as if they have fallen out of the air itself. One corpse is cut in half, the other is utterly unmarked. One is human, the other isn't. The city of Ambergris is half ruined, rotten; its population controlled by narcotics, internment camps and acts of terror. But its new masters want this case closed, urgently. Detective John Finch has just one week to solve it or be sent to the camps. With no ID for the victims, no clues, no leads and precious little hope, Finch's fate that hangs in the balance. But there is more to this case than first meets the eye. Enough to put Finch in the cross-hairs of every spy, rebel, informer and traitor in town. Under the shadow of the eldrich tower the occupiers are raising above the city, Finch is about to come face to face with a series of mysteries that will change him and Ambergris forever. Why does one of the victims most resemble a man thought dead for 100 years, what is the murders' connection to an attempted genocide nearly 600 years ago, and just what the secret purpose of the occupier's tower?