The main character (whose name isn't revealed until the end of the book) is a telepath who was kicked out of the Guild because of his addiction to a powerful drug akin to heroine. He is now clean and works as a consultant for the DeKalb county police, mostly performing suspect interviews.

The novel is set in a near-future, mostly post-apocalyptic Atlanta, Georgia. The apocalypse was the Tech Wars, wherein a large group of tech-savvy individuals used everyone's technological interconnectedness as a means of control and destruction. These wars took place mostly in Europe and North America. The world was saved by the Guild, which all but the lowest-level telepaths must be members of. The Guild got "very ugly" in order to win the Tech Wars. As a result, people are generally afraid of the telepaths' ability. But they were also so grateful, that the Guild was able to attain for itself near-autonomy through a series of accords with various governments.

One of the Guild's perogatives is to police its own members, and it has been effective in doing so, until now. It appears that a high-level telepath is committing serial murders and the Guild is not doing anything about it. In response, the DeKalb county police, with the help of the main character, has decided to take on the murder cases, without the help of, and maybe in spite of, the Guild.

This book is the first in a new series.