At the outset of his career with the FBI, Alex Cross is instructed to track down a band of kidnappers who are snatching people and possibly selling them into slavery, a case that is complicated by a terrible threat to Cross's own family.

Someone is murdering beautiful young women in the New York area and displaying them in mausoleums and underground tombs. The FBI is handling the case, with Special Agent Craig Frasier as lead. Kieran Finnegan, forensic psychologist and part owner of Finnegan's, her family's pub, is consulting on the case. Craig and Kieran are a couple who've worked together on more than one occasion. On this occasion, though, Craig fears for the safety of the woman...

The dead can tell us all about themselves: where they came from, how they lived, how they died, and, of course, who killed them. Forensic scientists can unlock the mysteries of the past and help serve justice using the messages left by a corpse, a crime scene, or the faintest of human traces. This book draws on crime novelist McDermid's own interviews and firsthand experience on scene with top forensic scientists. Along the way, McDermid discovers...