Kate Warne is many things: the country’s first female detective, a Pinkerton agent and a Union spy. It’s August 1861, and her latest assignment could end the bloody Civil War and bring the fractured United States together again. All she must do is win the trust of her captive: Confederate spy and socialite Rose Greenhow. But with Rose well aware of Kate’s working-class background and belief in abolitionism, it seems an impossible task. Worse, Kate has secrets that make her vulnerable, such as her forbidden love affair with a colleague. With time running out, Kate faces not only the moral and political divides between herself and Rose but also the ones she’s made in her own heart. She must decide which divides are worth crossing and how far she’s willing to go to defeat the Confederacy.

For the crime of stealing bread, 14-year-old May receives a life sentence: she must become a Sin Eater --- a shunned woman, brutally marked, whose fate is to hear the final confessions of the dying, eat ritual foods symbolizing their sins as a funeral rite, and thereby shoulder their transgressions to grant their souls access to heaven. Orphaned and friendless, apprenticed to an older Sin Eater who cannot speak to her, May must make her way in a dangerous and cruel world she barely understands. When a deer heart appears on the coffin of a royal governess who did not confess to the dreadful sin it represents, the older Sin Eater refuses to eat it. She is taken to prison, tortured and killed. To avenge her death, May must find out who placed the deer heart on the coffin and why.