Florida is full of human predators & they all give Dr Kay Scarpetta the opportunity & the means to do what she does best
- persuading the dead to speak to her. & in Boston Benton Wesley is working on a secret case involving convicted killers. It is a project which gives Scarpetta deep disquiet as does the behaviour of her niece Lucy who is spending too much time in cheap bars looking for casual pick-ups. The Academy is called when a woman's body is found in Boston. She has been tortured sexually abused her body tattooed with handprints. The same sort of handprints Lucy had seen on the flesh of her latest pick-up. Meanwhile Scarpetta & Marino are investigating the disappearance of a family in Florida called in by a concerned neighbour but as they search & find the tell-tale signs of abduction rather than disappearance they also discover that someone had assumed the identity of the caller & she is now dead. They've been set up & it becomes clear that someone is tracking their every move.