When his newborn son by his second wife is diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma, New York City forensic pathologist Jack Stapleton seeks to find a cure for his son while at the same time being drawn into a battle between the archbishop of New York and an archeologist--a battle involving what some people believe to be the skeletal remains the Virgin Mary.

"...New York City medical examiner Laurie Montgomery returns to work at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, where she's been employed for more than two decades. Worried about whether she still has what it takes after so much time away, Laurie finds her first case back to be a dangerous puzzler of the highest order, involving organized crime and two start-up biotech companies caught in a zero sum game...." -- Inside front cover.

"The explosive new medical thriller from New York Times-bestselling author Robin Cook. 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,...

New York City medical examiners Dr. Laurie Montgomery and Dr. Jack Stapleton confront a ballooning series of puzzling hospital deaths of young, healthy people after successful routine surgery. It seems impossible to determine why and how these patients are dying, yet Laurie comes to suspect that not only are the deaths related--they're intentional, suggesting the work of a remarkably clever healthcare serial killer.