Dell, a former mercenary, and his wife, Dolly, once a battlefield nurse, believe they have finally found peace in a deceptively idyllic town on the Oregon coast. Until early one morning, when a body washes up on the town's pristine beach. But this no accidental drowning--the corpse is covered with neo-Nazi tattoos . . . and the skull has been fractured with a spike.

Eager to close the case before it can hurt tourism, the jumpy D.A. arrests Homer, a harmless schizophrenic whose wristwatch--a gift from God, he says--is engraved with a symbol that exactly matches one of the dead man's tattoos. Mack, the director and sole employee of the local mental-health outreach program, is outraged but helpless. He confides in Dolly, who, with her local connections and her husband's ruthless skills, is anything but. As the search for the real killer pulls them deeper into the world of hate groups, Dell and Mack together discover the treasonous fog of evil that hovers not only above their town but also above America itself.

With this latest installment in his new Aftershock series, Andrew Vachss reminds us once again--in his inimitable, visceral prose-that for some, peace comes at a very high price.