Manhattan city forensic pathologist Laurie Montgomery battles to foil a plot of unimaginable evil in a distinguished New York hospital.

New York City medical examiners Laurie Montgomery and Jack Stapleton, under personal and professional stress after their love relationship goes sour, find their very lives in danger when they begin investigating the deaths of a series of seemingly healthy patients who suffered heart failure after undergoing routine surgeries.

Angela Dawson, M.D., appears to have it all: at the age of thirty-seven, she owns a fabulous New York City apartment, a stunning seaside house on Nantucket, and enjoys the perks of her prosperous lifestyle. But her climb to the top was rough, marked by a troubled childhood, a failed marriage, and the devastating blow of bankruptcy as a primary-care internist. Painfully aware of the role of economics in modern life, particularly in the health-care...

New York City medical examiner Jack Stapleton considers entering alternative medicine and makes contact with two former college classmates, including an archaeologist who is digging beneath Saint Peter's and a cardinal who would suppress the archaeologist's findings.

"After a young, seemingly healthy woman collapses suddenly on the NYC subway and dies by the time she reaches the hospital, her case is initially chalked up to a virulent strain of influenza. That is, until she ends up on Dr. Jack Stapleton's autopsy table, where Jack discovers something eerily fishy: First, that the young woman has had a heart transplant, and second, that her DNA matches that of the transplanted heart. Strangely, two more incidences...

"Colleagues turned spouses Dr. Laurie Montgomery and Dr. Jack Stapleton already have their plates full. The last thing they need is a murder. When Laurie's longtime friend Dr. Sue Passero dies in the hospital parking garage, an autopsy is required. With his curiosity sparked by the mystery around Sue's death, Jack sets out to investigate on-site at Manhattan Memorial Hospital even though it means defying the Office of Chief Medical Examiner's rules....