Dr. Kay Scarpetta is about to head to Miami for a vacation with Ben ton Wesley, her FBI profiler husband, when she sees seven pennies on a wall behind their Cambridge home. Why are all of the shiny coins dated 1981? Detective Pete Marino calls to tell her there's been a homicide nearby. Kay finds herself pursuing a serial sniper who is targeting victims who appear to have had nothing in common, and there is no pattern to indicate where the killer will strike next New Jersey, Massachusetts, and then off the Atlantic coast. And it is there that she comes face to face with evidence implicating her niece, Lucy.