The past nags on Devon Halsey as she walks through the crime scene. The physical and circumstantial evidence points to the murderer being Beka Imamura, Devon Halsey’s best friend. The victim, Beka’s own husband, renowned artist Gabriel Montebello. What appears to be a relationship gone sour and ended in a murder/ suicide conflicts with Devon’s personal knowledge of her friend. At the Northwest Woods Zendo, where Beka and Devon occasioned over the years, a monk has found Beka’s hair on the altar of Buddha. Devon works the scene, but the evidence all points to Beka offering her hair as a sign of grief - what was she grieving, though? What has haunted Devon for years begins to take shape in the present day. Dissecting the case file, she learns that a carving in the victim is actually a Koan - an unanswerable question that must be mediated upon in order to reach enlightenment. In the true nature of the Koan, Devon and Lochwood must find the answers in order to solve the crime, while also looking at the nature of betrayal and its many layers of disguise.