Kay Scarpetta has arranged to meet an inmate at the high-security Georgia Prison for Women. The prisoner is a convicted sex offender and the mother of a vicious and diabolically brilliant killer.
Against advice, Scarpetta is determined to hear this woman out - she believes she may hold some answers to the murder of her former deputy. But soon she finds connections to a string of grisly killings, including the slaughter of a Savannah family years earlier. As she learns more, Scarpetta is compelled to conclude that this is only the beginning of a terrifying terrain of conspiracy on an international scale. And she is the only one who can stop it...