At the US Naval Academy, the students refer to the administration as the Darkside, a nickname befitting the secrecy and manipulation that occur behind closed office doors. So when a first-year student falls to his death from a campus building, the Academy tenses as the Darkside begins to creep out of the shadows to cut off any potential scandal.

Retired naval aviator Ev Markham is now a professor at the Academy. When a provocative clue connects the dead student to senior midshipman Julie Markham, Ev knows how quickly his daughter could become the easy scapegoat the Darkside badly craves. But a second body convinces Academy security chief Jim Hall that a killer is on the loose. As both men struggle to uncover the truth, a psychopath more sinister than they can imagine lies in wait, protecting the ultimate-and most deadly-secret of all...