Art Penhaligon has spent his life measuring the world's decay.
For an aging safety inspector, the job was simple: find the cracks, sign the forms, and try not to look too closely at the darkness between the lines. But when a routine survey at a derelict industrial basin reveals a drainage pipe leaking a terrifying violet liquid and a discarded piece of dental gold, the math of Art's quiet life stops adding up.
Drawn into a lethal conspiracy of corporate "cleaners," Art discovers the existence of a high-capacity solvent designed to make liabilities—chemical and human—vanish without a trace. From the rain-slicked docks of Philadelphia to the high-stakes laboratories of the elite, he is hunted by an invisible enemy that turns souls into toxic waste.
Joined by a haunted security specialist with her own score to settle, Art must trade his surveyor's tools for a weapon. In a world where truth is being dissolved by the gallon, he is the last remaining catalyst. He isn't just looking for justice anymore; he's looking to prove that some things are insoluble.
