Juniper Correctional, jokingly abbreviated to JC, a dark jewel in the crown of the godawful American prison system, where the very worst of Juniper rot for life sentences that seem to stretch forever. In this hell-on-earth, it's hard to tell most days who is worse: the inmates or the corrupt guards that enact the will of the monomaniacal Warden Fleming. Fleming is a fallen star, a once bright-minded leader who turned the prison around, now hiding a terrible secret eating him away from the inside, a secret he'll do anything to cover up. But Fleming has problems, problems that threaten to unveil his secret.

There is a killer among those housed at Juniper Correctional. Inmates keep turning up dead, murdered in ungodly ways, but nobody knows how or why. The only thing that connects them is a nameless book from the prison's library. However, there is one ray of light: Frank. Frank isn't like the other guards. Frank still sees the good in people and is trying to make a difference, to save those souls he can from the darkness in their own hearts.

What Frank doesn't realise, however, is that the darkness is real, and he is about to see its true power...