The Gathering — Wessel Ebersohn

When Beloved Childe agrees to help a mother find her missing daughter she does not know what lies ahead and how complex the search will become. The web of lies and homicidal violence she enters only becomes clear when she is called in by government agents. They know of the young woman's disappearance. They also know other things that Beloved has not yet guessed at. It is a shock to discover that the missing girl has joined a cult that its members refer to simply as the Gathering. It is a still greater shock to discover that some of its members have been murdered. Who has killed them? The agents believe that if they can get Beloved on the inside they will find the missing woman and bring down the cult. It soon becomes clear to Beloved that achieving membership of the cult is going to take sexual relations with its leading members. Since her early teenage years she has had a succession of lovers so sex is not a problem, excepting that in this case her partners will be killers. She has never been intimate with a man she knew to be a murderer, but now it seems to be unavoidable. Beloved anticipates the dangers that lie ahead, but she cannot anticipate all the surprises the Gathering has in store for her. This is new territory for her, more puzzling than any previous case, and intensely more life threatening.