a human body can be cremated and reduced to ashes, small granules of tissue, bone and carbon when, exposed to eleven hundred degrees fahrenheit for two to three hours in a sealed oven. how then, could four boys be laughing and rough-housing while getting ready to start work one minute, and be reduced to the same ashen residue as cremation the next. the back of the restaurant kitchen where they worked had no evidence of a grease or electrical fire and was untouched by flames. the janitorial cubby where the boys had been standing was away from any of the ovens or stoves and was surrounded by large sinks and ice machines. when the smoke cleared, there was no evidence of fire, not even the odor of burning. the cardboard storage boxes on the shelves next to the boys were not scorched and the ceiling had no smoke residue on it. the surroundings were pristine and intact. how then was it possible for these four boys to have been so thoroughly cremated without leaving even the unique odor of burnt flesh? adding to the mystery, this same phenomenon began to occur with regularity all over the world affecting all levels of society, even becoming an international problem that politicians were reluctant to make known to the public. solving this perplexing problem became an obsession for alan stein, a retired pyrotechnic expert who was to enter into the world of human behavior that he could not have expected. the planet was beginning to revolt against the violence it had endured for centuries at the hands of brutal men, and the extent of aberrant human behavior against the innocent was about to be exposed. the outcome would become an uncontainable global crisis that could not be kept secret. very few would be able to survive . . . . . .