In a perfect future a famous poet commits terrible murder. WHY? That crime and that question lead a biotransformed policewoman to a jungle of torture and forgotten gods; a writer to the Bohemian shadows of a vast city; and a scientist directly into the mind - into the nightmare soul - of the psychopath himself. This is science fiction at its best: a detective story, a story of virtual reality entrapments and the coming to consciousness of an Artificial Intelligence ...