Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post reporter Olivia Penn already lost her baby and her best friend. She’s not about to lose the biggest story of her career.

With the help of her police contact, she’s on the case of what appears to be a random string of high-profile suicides sparked by guilty consciences. But there’s something strange about the suicide notes: They all say, “I deserve to die.” Olivia is determined to break the story that the deaths are the work of a serial killer.

She gets her big break when the killer commits a sensational double murder. “The Punisher” is on the hunt, and adulterers among the elite of Washington, D.C. are his prey.

The further Olivia pursues her story, the more her life unravels. And the more she uncovers, the more she begins to think that solving this case will also lead to discovering the truth behind her best friend’s mysterious disappearance two years earlier.

Willing to do anything to unveil the identity of the psychopath who is behind the successive murders, she finds herself embroiled in a psychological game, and it’s become chillingly personal. A stalker has been breaking into her home and sending threatening messages. Someone is trying to scare her away from her attempts to bait The Punisher with her news stories—someone close to her.

It’s a dangerous game she’s playing, and it all leads up to a magnificent twist ending. Will Olivia’s search for truth turn up anything? Or will her tenacious investigation cause her to lose her job, or her marriage—or her life?