Walter's day was off to a bad start ...

Walter Stillwell, superintendent of the Port Talbot Water Resource Recovery Facility, was a methodical man. Each weekday he got up at 6:30 a.m., recorded his blood pressure and heart rate, and prepared his breakfast, carefully measuring out 15 millilitres of homemade dressing for his modest salad of leaf lettuce and baking a serving of protein-usually a pork chop or chicken breast-in the toaster oven. Then, after watching a few minutes of the morning news, he dressed and left for work.

But today an urgent phone call from the plant foreman interrupts Walter's routine. A man has been found dead at the plant, in the east primary. As the police begin investigating, it soon becomes all too clear that Walter's life-and the lives of his friends and colleagues-will never be the same.

In this, the first mystery novel ever set in a water resource recovery facility-or, to use the lay term, a sewage plant-wastewater expert John Seldon introduces readers not only to a fascinating cast of characters but also to the overlooked systems and processes that make modern urban life possible. The result is a novel that will leave you guessing until the last chapter not only whodunit-but why.