Dr. Kay Scarpetta is now freelancing with the National Forensic Academy in Florida. The teasing psychological clues lead Scarpetta and her team to suspect that they are hunting someone with a cunning and malevolent mind whose secrets have kept them in the shadows, until now.

In Alberta, Canada, an eminent paleontologist disappears from a dinosaur dig site, and at the Cambridge Forensic Center, Kay Scarpetta receives a grisly communication that gives her a dreadful reason to suspect this may become her next case. Then, with shocking speed, events begin to unfold. A body recovered from Boston Harbor reveals bizarre trace evidence hinting of a link to other unsolved cases that seem to have nothing in common. Who is behind...