Moon Music

Just outside of the city's neon Strip, in the bleak wastelands of Nevada's desert, Las Vegas Metro police discover the mauled corpse of a young and beautiful showgirl. Even in a city known for its excesses -- from Arab sheiks to casino billionaires -- this crime is particularly shocking because of the animalistic destruction of the body. Called to the crime scene is Detective Sergeant Romulus Poe -- a thirty-five-year-old Vegas native and a seasoned, fifteen-year police veteran. A loner with a love of justice, Poe immerses himself in the horrific case. The corpse is badly mutilated. Certain organs are gone and the exposure to the harsh desert elements has made forensics very difficult. Poe is particularly struck by its dreaded similarities to a horrendous slaying done by an anonymous monster dubbed "the Bogeyman." Immediately, Poe forms an investigatory team consisting of the handsome detective Stephen Jensen, his colleague but no friend, Detective Patricia Deluca, a homicide newcomer, and forensic pathologist Rukmani Kalil, who is also Poe's part-time, unorthodox girlfriend. From the start, the team is mired in a web of intrigue. And the urgency of resolution becomes frenzied when another young nighttime desert dump is found a month later. From Native American mysticism and medieval folk legends to untold twentieth century scientific secrets, Poe must sift through Vegas's sordid past and dark underbelly to solve a series of gruesome murders -- and to save a beautiful woman he had once loved -- before all of them are caught in a deadly dance of Moon Music.