Minnesota cop Virgil Flowers teams up with an Israeli cop who is tailing a man who's smuggled out an extraordinary relic -- a copper scroll revealing startling details about the man known as King Solomon. Problems mount when teams of murderous bad guys believe Virgil and the woman cop are getting in their way of claiming the relic for themselves.

Summoned by Lucas Davenport to investigate a pair of murders in which the victims are found with lemons in their mouths, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers struggles to find a connection that could prevent additional killings.

Jimmy Sharp, Becky Welsh, Tom McCall. They were Bonnie and Clyde, they thought, and what's-his-name, the sidekick. Three teenagers with dead-end lives, and chips on their shoulders, and guns. The first person they killed was a highway patrolman. The second was a woman during a robbery. Then, hell, why not keep on going? As their crime spree cuts a swath through rural Minnesota, some of it is captured on the killers' cell phones and sent to a local...

In Israel, a man clutching a backpack searches desperately for a boat. In Minnesota, Virgil Flowers gets a message from Lucas Davenport: You're about to get a visitor. It's an Israeli cop, and she's tailing a man who's smuggled out an extraordinary relic, a copper scroll revealing startling details about the man known as King Solomon. Wait a minute, laughs Virgil. Is this one of those Da Vinci Code deals? The secret scroll, the blockbuster revelation,...

Whenever you hear the sky rumble, that usually means a storm. In Virgil Flowers's case, make that two. The first comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Two large Siberian tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are very concerned that they've been stolen for their organs. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes their parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get - and keep - what they need. As Virgil is about to...

In southern Minnesota, a young man murders a local farmer, drops the body into a grain bin, and then calls the sheriff to report the "accident." Suspicious, the sheriff calls in Virgil Flowers, who quickly breaks the kid down. The next day the boy is found hanging in his cell. Virgil suspects foul play, and as he investigates, he begins to uncover a multigeneration, multifamily conspiracy--a series of crimes of such monstrosity that even he has difficulty...