Vice squad detective Bobby Vasquez receives an anonymous tip that directs him to a mountain cabin where he opens a Pandora's box of horror that will haunt him to his dying day. Within hours, Vincent Cardoni -- a brilliant surgeon with a history of violence and drug abuse -- is arrested for a heinous crime. Facing a seemingly insurmountable wall of evidence, he turns to top criminal defense attorney Frank Jaffe -- who, along with his ambitious daughter Amanda, must put on an inspired defense.

Amanda's first taste of criminal defense work raises moral questions she's loath to address. Is she defending an innocent man? Or is she using her considerable skills to set a monster free? Then Cardoni disappears under bizarre circumstances. Four years later, a second set of murders begins ... Has Cardoni resurfaced? Is this a copy-cat killer? Or has the real killer been someone else all along?

Following a twisting trail of clues, including a harrowing diary that clinically records the killer's horrible deeds, Amanda and Bobby join the hunt -- and become targets themselves of the twenty-first century's first genuinely monstrous psychopath.

Performed by Margaret Whitton

The particulars of the killings are so similar to the first set of murders that Amanda is convinced Cardoni is involved. When he is found to be working at the same hospital where he was once a promising surgeon (this time as a custodian and under an assumed name), she draws the logical conclusion. But when she finds Cardoni's severed hand at the scene of the crimes, she is forced to rethink the assumptions on which her defense of the doctor's ex-wife is based. Could Justine, in fact, be the killer? Author Phillip Margolin's newest book moves at an almost frantic pace. Bodies pile up, evidence mounts, and everything points to Cardoni's guilt until the end, a stunner that surprises Amanda as well as the reader. This chilling, deftly crafted novel will hold the reader's attention to the last page. --Jane Adams