Light Yagami is an ace student with great prospects--and he's bored out of his mind. But all that changes when he finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a rogue Shinigami death god. Any human whose name is written in the notebook dies, and now Light has vowed to use the power of the Death Note to rid the world of evil. But when criminals begin dropping dead, the authorities send the legendary detective L to track down the killer. With L hot on his heels, will Light lose sight of his noble goal...or his life?

Light has always been confident in his ability to outthink everyone, but L's protégés are proving to be more of a challenge than he anticipated. The more Light mentally maneuvers, the tighter the net around him becomes. And now Near and Mello are working to break the task force apart and expose Kira from within! Light has always held up under pressure in the past, but will the stress of this new line of attack and the strain of maintaining three different personalities be the beginning of his end?