"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...

When Scarpetta examines a young man's body, she discovers stunning indications that he may have been alive when he was zipped inside a pouch and locked inside the cooler of her new Cambridge Forensic Center in Massachusetts. Various 3-D radiology scans reveal more shocking details about internal injuries unlike any Scarpetta has ever seen. These suggest the possibility of a conspiracy to cause mass casualties, and she races against time to discover...

Harvard professor Wilson Chaney is in a comprising position. His marriage, his reputation, and his career are all being held hostage. Chaney needs Carlotta's help to ferret out the blackmailer and retrieve the last of the incriminating love letters he sent freshman student Denali Brinkman-before she committed suicide in a Memorial Drive boathouse. It's a nasty bit of business, but Carlotta reluctantly agrees to help the dishonorable mentor. However,...

Spiky freelancer Theda Krakow has fallen on a bare patch. Changes at the newspaper have cut her regular assignments, and magazine work is slim. When a call comes in asking her to profile Cool, a gifted musician who's being oddly reclusive, its a welcome relief.

The first graduating class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is thrown into turmoil by bizarre phenomena that cause instruments to inexplicably spin out of control, challenging enterprising students to protect lives while combating Harvard rivals.