In a near-future where women succumb to a sleeping disease and men revert to their primal natures, one mysteriously immune woman struggles to survive in an Appalachian town where she is treated as both a demon and a lab specimen.

"Samuel Pipps is the greatest detective of his day...but now he's a prisoner, accused of an unknown crime by one of the world's most powerful men. Along with his faithful sidekick, Arent Hayes, they're sailing back to Amsterdam from the East Indies, where he'll stand trial. But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. Still shackled in his cell, Pipps sends Hayes to solve a mystery that connects every passenger on board....