[5][6][7] The work is part of a series following the character Tim Rackley, a member of the United States Marshals Service, and opens with a suicide in the La Brea Tar Pits.

[8][9] Charismatic leader TD Betters had created his own society based on self-help tenets, and Rackley must navigate through it without getting pulled in himself.

[13] Oakland Press writer Mark Terry went on to state that the author had done his homework researching for the book, and that it was a fascinating and disturbing look at cults.

[8] The book also received favorable reviews in The Capital Times,[14] Cleveland Plain Dealer,[4] and the San Jose Mercury News.

[15] In the Audio version, AudioFile cited narrator Dylan Baker's "strong performance", stating that he differentiated between the multitude of characters in the book well, making them easy to distinguish.