Book excerpt: This book was originally published under the title Ceremony in August 2021. Dr. Kep Woodhead is a brilliant, irascible forensic toxicologist with a dark past. Bernadette Becker is a disgraced federal investigator with one last chance. They're both assigned to a strange poisoning case: a graduate student has been found dead in a 15th-century chapel, a needle filled with a controversial hallucinogen sticking out of his arm. The priest, the professor, the piscary president, the protégé, the protestor— all emerge with a motive to stop the victim's research. Can Becker and Woodhead find the truth before more fall victim to the killer?