Its the night of the full Cold Moon
- the month of December according to the lunar calendar. A young man is found dead in lower Manhattan the first in a series of victims of a man calling himself the Watchmaker. This killers obsession with time drives him to plan the murders with the precision of fine timepieces & the victims die prolonged deaths while an eerie clock ticks away their last minutes on earth. Lincoln Rhyme Amelia Sachs & the rest of the crew are tapped to handle the case & stop the Watchmaker & his partner Vincent Reynolds a repulsive character with a special interest in the female victims of the killer. Amelia is not only Lincolns eyes & ears at crime scenes on the Watchmaker case but shes now running her own homicide investigation-her first case as lead detective. The policewomans unwavering efforts in pursuing the killers of a businessman who left behind a wife & son sets into motion clockwork gears of its own with consequences reaching to people & events that will endanger not only many lives but Lincolns & Amelias future together.