Victoria Iphigenia by birth, V.I. by profession, leaves Chicago for the first time ever when the search for a vanished film student and a faded Hollywood star leads her to Kansas. Accompanied by her dog, V.I. tracks the pair through a university town, across fields dotted by Cold War-era missile silos - and into a past riven by long-simmering racial tensions that holds the key to the mysteries of the present. But every answer V.I. finds unveils another mystery - and leads to another dead body. And in this, her most far-reaching and disturbing case, not even the seasoned V.I. is safe.