 His investigation of the Ghost, a serial killer who targets female "yaskedasi" entertainers, brings him in conflict with the Tharian priesthood; Tharian religion equates death with moral pollution, causing the scenes of the Ghost's murders to be quarantined and cleansed in lieu of any forensic investigation.This leads him to collaborate with Trisana Chandler and Kethlun Warder in using more distant methods to discover what happened in the crime scene