BRIETMarketplace

A serial killer stalks the streets of Spokane, acting out a misogynist script from the dark heart of this culture. Across town, a writer named Derrick has spent his life tracking the reasons--political, psychological, spiritual--for the sadism of modern civilization. And through the grim nights, Nika, a trafficked woman, tries to survive the grinding violence of prostitution. Their lives, and the forces propelling them, are about to collide. Derrick’s current project is a book called Possession, which asks the ontological question of who is responsible for the culture of domination that’s destroying the earth. Meanwhile, with motivations opposite to Derrick’s, the serial killer is asking much the same question of the women he kidnaps as his final act of possession--and Nika is next. Derrick’s metaphysical explorations suddenly take on more urgency as visions both terrifying and sacred begin to intrude, and past and future collapse without warning.