What initially appears to be a bank heist turns into something far more complex and deadly. When forensic scientist Theresa MacLean seizes the opportunity to trade places with the city's best hostage negotiator, she must decide what she is willing to sacrifice in order to save the lives of innocent people as well as her own.

Experiencing panic attacks and blackouts at murder scenes, forensics expert Cat Ferry is suspended from her task force and returns to her Mississippi hometown, where she discovers disturbing information about her father's murder.

Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs take on the investigation of a brutal triple murder in Manhattan's Diamond District. The killer, known as the Promisor, is murdering men and women midway through the purchase of an engagement ring.

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...

"Amelia Sachs is hot on the trail of a killer. She's chasing him through a department store in Brooklyn when an escalator malfunctions. The stairs give way, with one man horribly mangled by the gears. Sachs is forced to let her quarry escape as she jumps in to try to help save the victim. She and famed forensic detective Lincoln Rhyme soon learn, however, that the incident may not be an accident at all, but the first in a series of intentional attacks....

"A woman awakes in the morning to find that someone has picked her apartment's supposedly impregnable door lock and rearranged personal items, even sitting beside her while she slept. The intrusion, the police learn, is a message to the entire city of carnage to come. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are brought in to investigate and soon learn that the sociopathic intruder, who calls himself 'the Locksmith' can break through any lock or security system...

After an old university friend and fellow archaeologist's murdered, forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway travels to Lancashire to examine the bones he found, which reveal a shocking fact about King Arthur, and discovers a campus living in fear of a sinister right-wing group called the White Hand.

The scene of the crime is lavish but gruesome. In a luxurious mansion on the outskirts of Cleveland, a woman's body lies gutted in a pool of blood on the marble floor. The victim is Joanna Moorehouse, founder of Sterling Financial. The killer could be any one of her associates. Only Maggie recognizes the blood-soaked handiwork of a killer who has committed the most heinous of crimes--and will continue killing until he is stopped. Burdened with unbearable...