The first killing is a morbid hint. The second confirms the fact: A serial killer is on the loose - with a method unlike any that Dr. Jessica Coran has ever come across. As she briefs fellow FBI agents on the killings, her mind can barely wrap itself around the case. Someone is drugging young women, cutting into their scalps with medical precision - and making off with their brains. What he is doing with them continues to baffle even the top FBI experts...

Until Jessica discovers the killer's mysterious calling card: a sign carved into the back of each victim's skull. Then, an anonymous phone tip implicates Daryl Thomas Cahil, a madman whose cannabilistic escapades included digging up the recently buried bodies of young girls to devour the part of the brain in which he thought their soul resided. Conveniently, he's just been released from a penitentiary for the criminally insane, where he'd undergone an unusual form of "rehabilitation."

Though most of the evidence points to Cahil, Jessica has her doubts. But even she can't anticipate the twist her investigation is about to take - one that gives millions of people a front row seat for the next victim's death.