Shidou, a young hacker moonlighting as a monk, contends with femme fatales and a gang of hot-rodders to track down the source of the Death Mail, a novel computer virus igniting a suicide drive in anyone who receives it.
In Chicago, Marissa Irvine arrives at 14 Arthur Avenue, expecting to pick up her young son Milo from his first playdate with a boy at his new school. But the woman who answers the door isn't a mother she recognizes. She isn't the nanny. She doesn't have Milo. And so begins every parent's worst nightmare.