Florida is full of human predators, and they all give Dr Kay Scarpetta the opportunity and the means to do what she does best - persuading t he dead to speak to her. And in Boston, Benton Wesley is working on a secret case involving convicted killers. It is a project which gives S carpetta deep disquiet, as does the behaviour of her niece, Lucy, who is spending too much time in cheap bars looking for casual pick-ups. T he Academy is called when a woman's body is found in Boston. She has b een 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 and Marino are investigating the disappearanc e of a family in Florida, called in by a concerned neighbour, but as t hey search and find the tell-tale signs of abduction rather than disap pearance, they also discover that someone had assumed the identity of the caller, and she is now dead. They've been set up, and it becomes c lear that someone is tracking their every move.