Twenty years after the discovery of the Soulscape, the city of Silvergate thrives in a world where the dead testify against their killers. When artist Sarah Monroe is found dead, posed like one of her own haunting paintings, Detective James Black is confronted with something unthinkable in this age when the dead have a voice: silence. There are no ghostly witnesses, no spiritual traces, only a corpse. As Detective Black and his rookie partner dig deeper into the shadows of Silvergate, where modern ambition and the supernatural collide, they discover that some secrets are worth killing for.