Welcome to The Gut. Maria Costa was doing just fine working as a private investigator: digging up dirt on the husbands of rich wives and getting drunk in the time between. That was before a new case pulled her back to The Gut, a dark ghetto she'd avoided since she quit being a cop. On the surface it looks like The Gut has changed — the body count has dropped, and the politicians are calling it a renaissance. But Maria's ex-partner, Kieran Hynes, suspects there's a sinister reality to the improvements: prostitutes and drug dealers are going missing, falling off the face of the earth. Can Maria and Kieran stop the ancient evil threatening life in their entire city?