Dr. Kay Scarpetta is working a suspicious death scene in Cambridge, Massachusetts when an emergency alert sounds on her phone. A video link lands in her text messages and seems to be from her computer genius niece Lucy. But how can it be? It's clearly a surveillance film of Lucy taken almost twenty years ago. As Scarpetta watches she begins to learn frightening secrets about her niece, whom she has loved and raised like a daughter. That film clip...

"Medical examiner Kat Novak fears that a serial killer is stalking the streets, using a deadly drug to do his dirty work. The police are skeptical. The mayor won't listen. Kat's chief suspect is a prominent citizen. As the death toll rises, Kat races to expose a deadly predator who is close enough to touch her"--

Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta has just inherited one of the most notorious cases of her career. Two years ago, a former beauty queen's body washed up on the shore of Wallops Island, Virginia. She was last seen on a boat with her fiancé, who has since been held in jail while awaiting trial. Scarpetta must act as the expert witness for the case, an investigation previously botched by another forensic pathologist. After a grueling cross-examination...