In the near future, genetic engineering has grown by leaps and bounds. Getting your genes modified is as easy as (and less painful than) getting a tattoo.
However, not all is at ease. A malicious scientist wishes to bend all humanity to his will, and is willing to do everything in his power to accomplish this. He has developed an airborne mutagen which turns rational, intelligent humans into mindless, violent drones.

A group of scientists, who barely escaped the scientist's machinations, must develop a cure before they succumb to the mutagen. On the other side of the world, a group of people, thrown together by circumstance, must protect themselves and a child savant from the hordes.

The Catharsis is coming; will they be ready?

Catharsis: Dead Moon Rising is the first book in the Catharsis Chronicles, which follows the lives of two groups of people which both have the same goal: survive and prevent the end of civilization as we know it. Dr. Terry McCarthy and two (as-of-yet unnamed) scientists, who were mentors and colleagues of the nefarious Dr. Kim Li Tang, the antagonist, escape from Dr. Tang's grasp before they are mutated into Drones. They then find safety in the bowels of Pyongyang's "underground city", where they try to develop an antidote to counteract the mutagen released by Dr. Tang. Their parts of the novel describe their hunt for the cure and insight into the geographic center of the Catharsis.

The other parts of the novel center around a group of people in the United States.  Joseph Delacroix and Matthew Wilson, two engineering students at the Conklin Institute (an institute located in Utah for the most gifted engineers, where Dr. Tang received his doctorate and Dr. McCarthy taught), barely escape as a mutagen bomb explodes in the Institute. They then team up with John Sinclair, an oh-so-cliché grizzled war veteran, to protect a young savant named Lukas, that the Drones seem to be targeting. They trek cross country, trying to reach the rumored "Safe Haven", located somewhere in the West Virginian Appalachia. Their parts of the novel detail how society falls apart after the Catharsis begins and to what lengths people will go to save themselves.