See all titles by Tess Gerritsen

She s Pilgrim Hospital s most unusual patient, and on this Saturday night, a media circus is gathered to record every minute of her visit to the X-ray department. Crammed into the small CT scan room are reporters, TV cameras, a select group of medical technicians and Dr Maura Isles. Maura is there as a forensic pathologist because the patient being scanned tonight isn t alive. She s probably been dead for centuries. She is, in fact, a mummy. As the CT scan proceeds, everyone in the room leans in close.

At first everything seems unremarkable then the scan moves on to the thighs, and the room erupts in chaos as an image of a bullet is revealed. Maura declares this a possible homicide case and calls in Jane Rizzoli. At the subsequent autopsy Jane and Maura learn the horrifying truth: the mummy has only recently been killed, and may have been held captive for some time before her death. It soon becomes horribly clear that a sadistic killer has been hunting women for decades and that his next victim is much much closer than anyone thinks.