It’s been a year since eighteen-year-old River Lang’s best friend died in a car accident. And every day since, he’s had to pass by the depressing billboard that appeared as a result: a texting and driving PSA that reduces Dylan to a cautionary tale and River to the best friend of the dead kid at school. Dylan was so much more than a statistic, though, and River hates that everyone in town seems to have forgotten. When he’s caught improving (a.k.a. vandalizing) Dylan’s billboard, River is blackmailed into joining the Affinity Trials.

Martin Friedrich, a German philosopher, is cycling through an intersection on his way to give a lecture when a speeding car strikes and kills him. Shortly afterwards, Detective Sergeant Stephen Minter - an Austrian-born cockney Jew, whose parents were interned during the war as enemy aliens - stands over the body of Friedrich, contemplating the age-old question: who did it?

The unlikely pair Tallus Domingo and Diem Krause find themselves together on a case, uncovering secrets they never expected. But doesn't everyone have skeletons in their closet?

Jimmy, a vivacious journalist, longs to trade his sheltered life for a summer of adventure. Nova, an aloof scientist, wants to resuscitate his dead love life but hasn't found the right man. Sparks fly when a chance encounter drops Jimmy and Nova into the same orbit.

Murder is not her department. It’s not like it used to be. Modern-day grim reapers wear business casual, not black cloaks, and they don’t carry scythes, they work for S. C. Y. T. H. E. (Secure Collection, Yielding, and Transportation of Human Essences), where the Department of Natural Causes is the least exciting gig. And that’s how Kathy Valence likes it: boring and predictable. She has enough stress in her personal life; she’s mid-divorce, pregnant, and terrified she doesn’t have what it takes to be a good mom. Then, she goes to pick up a new client and finds his soul is missing.