The Gathering

In the remote Alaskan town of Deadhart, a fifteen-year-old boy is found dead, his throat torn out and his body drained of blood. Suspicion falls immediately on the Colony — a reclusive group of vampires who have lived on the town's fringes for generations, and who were blamed for a nearly identical killing twenty-five years earlier.

Detective Barbara Atkins arrives from the Forensic Vampyr Anthropology Department to determine whether the Colony is truly responsible or being scapegoated. In a world where vampire colonies are protected by law — and can only be culled if proven a threat to human life — the stakes of her verdict are enormous. Teaming up with Jenson Tucker, the town's disgraced former sheriff, Atkins works against mounting hostility, old grievances, and a rising body count.

As a brutal storm threatens to cut Deadhart off from the outside world, the tension between the townspeople and the Colony edges toward violence. C.J. Tudor reworks vampire mythology into a taut, atmospheric murder mystery about prejudice, fear of the outsider, and who the real monsters are.