It's a sunny morning in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also Dr. Kay Scarpetta's birthday. She's about to head to Miami for a vacation with Benton Wesley, her FBI profiler husband, when she notices seven pennies on a wall behind their home. Is this a kids' game? And if so, why are all of the coins dated 1981 and so shiny they could be newly minted? Her cellphone rings, and Detective Pete Marino tells her there's been a homicide five minutes away. A high school music teacher has been shot with uncanny precision as he unloaded groceries from his car. Yet no one has heard or seen a thing.

In this 22nd Scarpetta novel, the master forensic sleuth finds herself in the unsettling pursuit of a serial sniper who leaves no incriminating evidence except fragments of copper. The shots seem impossible to achieve, yet they are so perfect that they cause death in an instant. the victims appear to have had nothing in common, and there is no pattern to indicate where the killer will strike next. Until Scarpetta comes face to face with shocking evidence that implicates her techno genius niece, Lucy, her very own flesh and blood.

With the bravura storytelling and state-of-the-art forensic details that are her hallmarks, Patricia Cornwell again raises the bar with this highly entertaining new tale, her most captivating SCARPETTA novel yet.