A University of Texas at Austin art student comes home to find police on her doorstep. They tell her that her microbiologist mother and engineer father as well as all of her parents’ coworkers were murdered. Isa wants to understand what happened. She enlists the assistance of an investigative journalist to find out. The pair have no idea where this search will take them.

Librarian's Note: An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found [here](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36593512-the-slow-kill) Botanist, Frank Harvey, leads a project for the Wagner Company to build a water pipeline and a hydrofarm to bring new life to the cracked, barren lakebeds that were the primary water supply for Austin, Texas. A biodome over the lake is erected to deter evaporation, but plans to electrify and seal the dome's exterior forcibly separate Frank apart from his wife and six-year-old son. A decade later, Alex Harvey, now sixteen years old, hates the father who abandoned him and his mother to starvation, so Alex's decides it's time for a little revenge.