Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro of Boston are hired by a woman to find her stalker. When she commits suicide they discover a killer who manipulates his victims' minds until despair drives them to kill themselves.

Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro try to protect the son of a prominent psychiatrist in the midst of an ever-growing body count and a list of clues that point impossibly to a serial killer who has been in prison for twenty years.

After pleas from the child's aunt, private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro take the case of a missing child.