It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN to offer her services pro bono to New York Citys Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments later during the same telecast she receives a startling call-in from a former psychiatrist patient of Benton Wesleys. When she returns after the show to the apartment where she and Benton live, she finds an ominous package possibly a bomb waiting for her at the front desk. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpettas life finds her embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionairess with whom Lucy seems to have shared a secret past.

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