When a young woman turns up dead in a peat bog near the banks of the River Tiber, Teresa Lupo, a maverick pathologist, believes she has the victim of an ancient Roman ritual on her hands. She's wrong. Leo Falcone, the chief inspector, knows this case is recent history and the horror is still very much alive.

So begins an investigation that will take Nic Costa and his team deep into the dark underworld of modern day Rome's most disturbing and sinister secrets. As they proceed with their enquiries, it soon becomes clear that someone is trying very hard to kill Teresa Lupo. And now another beautiful young woman has gone missing ...