A mass grave of eighteen mutilated female corpses is discovered in Shanghai, and detective Li Yan is sent from Beijing to establish if the bodies are linked to an unsolved murder in the capital, in this third China thriller from Peter May. Li is to work with Mei Ling, deputy head of Shanghai's serious crime squad and a formidable woman—a fact not lost on Li's on-again, off-again lover Margaret Campbell, the expatriate American forensic pathologist. But when Campbell learns that the victims were subjected to "live" autopsies, she swallows her pride and joins Li and Mei in the hunt for the murderer.