Nine years.
It has been almost a decade since Duluth said good-bye to its innocence. The city creeps ever closer to the 10th anniversary of the year in which it found itself both gripped by murder and united in terror and during which the pillar of its community, DS Jonathan Stride, had his home and heart torn to ribbons by the claws of cancer.
Nine lives.
Cat Mateo, an orphan with a knack for landing on her feet, has bid farewell to a life on the streets. This once-stray teenager owes her rescue to Detective Stride, the father figure she holds close to her heart. But Cat holds something else to her chest: a secret, the sheer power of which she could not possibly comprehend. A secret that, once out of the bag, will viciously scratch at Duluth's still-healing wounds. It will make Stride wave good-bye to his convictions and say hello to his darkest fears.