1915. A city emerges from the ashes . . . and so does a killer concealed in its shadows.

Nine years after San Francisco's great earthquake and fires, the city is just beginning to be reborn and is full of possibility. The World's Fair is opening to herald the completion of the Panama Canal and display exciting wonders and the promise of the new technological age.

Yet the primitive past haunts the city's renaissance. Leaving a trail of brutality, a murderous fanatic secretly stalks one of the fair's chief attractions: the brilliant mesmerist James 'J. D.' Duncan. Homicide detective Randall Blackburn and his adopted son, Shane Nightingale, must combine their intuitive profiling skills deductive techniques to solve a murder that hasn't happened yet . . . one that only its terrified intended victim can see coming.