"New Year's Eve: Long Island detectives Devon Halsey and Lochwood Brennen, secret lovers, are thrust into mayhem by the grisly murder of Devon's best friend, Beka Imamura. What has haunted Devon for years begins to take shape in the present day. As she dissects the case file, she learns that a carving found on the victim's body is actually a koan - an unanswerable question that must be meditated upon in order to reach enlightenment.

In the true nature of the koan, Devon and Lochwood must find the answers in order to solve the crime, while also looking at the nature of betrayal and its many layers of disguise."--BOOK JACKET.