When the mutilated and dismembered bodies of eighteen women are discovered in a mass grave in Shanghai, Li is sent to establish if the corpses relate to an unsolved murder in Beijing and finds the most horrifying catalogue of killings ever uncovered in the Middle Kingdom.

Once more, Margaret's mercurial personal relationship with Li threatens their professional collaboration. Margaret, having just suffered the heartbreak of burying her father, arrives in Shanghai to find her partnership with Li threatened by another woman. Born in the Year of the Tiger, Mei-Ling seems to have her claws firmly fixed in Li. How can Margaret, a mere 'foreign devil', compete with Mei-Ling, deputy head of Shanghai's serious crime squad?

But faced with the grisly proposition that the murdered women have been subjected to 'live'autopsies, the three realise they are tracking a monster of inhman capcity. And the closer they get to this ruthlessly cold-blooded killer, the closer they come to realising their own personal nightmares.

Peter May once again combines edge-of-the-seat suspense and a brilliantly evoked picture of modern China to create an unputdownable thriller.