Dr. Kay Scarpetta, on assignment with the FBI, gets involved in a Christmas Eve murder in New York City. She must identify the dead female before the serial killer whose work this is finds Scarpetta's niece. "In Richmond, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of Virginia and consultant for the FBI, is in the midst of a late-night autopsy at the morgue when the call comes: Gault, the sadistic psychopath who has eluded capture for years, has struck...

Journalist Henry Parker tracks down a sharpshooter named the Boy whose weapon of choice, an antique Winchester rifle, may link Henry to a long-dead Western outlaw.

The journey begins when Matthew, now an apprentice problem solver for the London-based Herrald Agency, accepts an unusual and hazardous commission. Together with his colleague, Hudson Greathouse, he agrees to escort the notorious mass murderer Tyranthus Slaughter from an asylum outside Philadelphia to the docks of New York. Along the way, Slaughter makes his captors a surprising--and extremely tempting--offer.