Once Dr. Emil Euler Ganz was a preeminent astrophysicist with a worldrenowned popularity. But then he vanished without the caution to his family members or colleagues. Fifteen years later, he reappeared as ‘Father Jupiter,’ the creator and charismatic head of the technological cult, The Order of the Rings. And today he’s dead–a vial of sleeping pills and a clear bottle of vodka position near his lifeless body.

Was Ganz’s death an accident? Suicide? Or do somebody hasten Jupiter prematurely out of the about Jupiter’s Bones: A Decker/Lazarus Novel world? They are the queries LAPD Lieutenant Peter Decker and his Homicide group are motivated to answer as they enter the cult’s fortresslike compound. But the useless leader’s four ‘privileged’ attendants make it clear that the police are not welcome there–and the inexplicable disappearance of two from the Order’s associates, including a kid, turns an currently uncomfortable situation even uglier and even more incendiary. Decker will require more than the intelligence and support of his wife, Rina Lazarus, to defuse a ticking time bomb of jealousy, greed, bizarre hidden pasts, and dangerous secrets–one that could explode at any time into mayhem so pernicious it threatens to destroy a multitude of misguided lives–and scores of helpless, innocent children as well.