With high-tension suspense and cutting-edge technology, Patricia
Cornwell--the world's #1 bestselling crime writer--once again proves
her exceptional ability to entertain and enthrall in this remarkable
novel featuring chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta.
On her quest to find out exactly what happened to her former deputy
chief, Jack Fielding, murdered six months before, Scarpetta drives to
the Georgia Prison for Women to meet a convicted sex offender and the
mother of a vicious and diabolically brilliant killer. Against the
advice of her FBI criminal intelligence agent husband, Benton Wesley,
Scarpetta is determined to hear this woman out.
Scarpetta has both personal and professional reasons to learn more about
a string of grisly killings: the murder of a Savannah family years
earlier, a young woman on death row, and then other inexplicable deaths
that begin to occur at a breathtaking pace. Driven by inner forces,
Scarpetta discovers connections that compel her to conclude that what
she thought ended with Fielding's death and an attempt on her own life
is only the beginning of something far more destructive: a terrifying
terrain of conspiracy and potential terrorism on an international scale.
And she is the only one who can stop it.