Book excerpt: A dark secret hides in the swirling dust and exultant revelry of Burning Man. Asha Amarasuriya is bored and struggling to get by as a martial arts instructor in Oakland. When an enigmatic seductress offers her a golden ticket, Asha decides to take a leap of faith and head to Burning Man. But there is more than meets the eye at the infamous desert pilgrimage and Asha gets sucked into a quest to unravel a sinister mystery at the heart of Black Rock City. Will Asha and her friends survive to expose the shadowy conspiracy? By the time the Man burns, their lives will have changed forever.