Alex Cross is drawn into a bitter personal battle against corruption, conspiracy and savage violence in a chase that takes him through a vast and uncompromising landscape.

Alex Cross rejoins the DC Police Force to confront two of the most diabolical killers he's ever encountered, a psychotic killer who craves an audience and a murdering mastermind who works alone. Both want Alex dead, and they'll to do anything to get what they want, even if it means plotting together…

Among the villains Alex Cross has faced — Gary Soneji, Casanova, Kyle Craig, The Wolf — one psychopath tops them all. Alex knows him as his wife's killer. Alex may have a chance to catch his wife's murderer after all these years. Is this a chance for justice at long last? Or the culminating scene in his own deadly obsession?

A well-known actress was shot outside her home in Beverly Hills. Shortly afterward, an editor for the Los Angeles Times receives an e-mail describing the murder in vivid details. Alex quickly learns that this is not an isolated incident. The killer, known as Mary Smith, has done this before and plans to kill again.

In broad desert daylight, a mysterious platoon of soldiers evacuates the entire population of Sunrise Valley, Nevada. Minutes later, a huge bomb detonates a hundred feet above the ground and lays waste to homes, cars, and playgrounds: a town annihilated in an instant.

Alex Cross's first case since joining the FBI has his new colleagues stymied. Across the country, beautiful women are being kidnapped to be bought and sold as slaves. Behind this depraved scheme stands a shadowy figure known only as The Wolf, a master criminal who has brought a new reign of terror to organized crime.

Alex Cross is on his way to resign from the Washington, D.C., Police Force when his partner shows up at his door with a case he can't refuse. One of John Sampson's oldest friends, from their days together in Vietnam, has been arrested for murder. Worse yet, he is subject to the iron hand of the United States Army.

Alex Cross has never believed in vampires. But when two joggers are found slain in a manner that suggests a macabre ritual, he has to reconsider. Someone believes in vampires enough to have committed a series of bizarre murders that appear to be the work of one. Local police are horrified, and even the FBI is baffled.

In a series of crimes that has stunned Washington, D.C., bank robbers have been laying out precise demands when they enter the building — and then killing the bank employees and their families if those instructions are not followed to the letter. Alex Cross takes on the case, certain that this is no ordinary bank robber at work.

Alex Cross is in love. But his happiness is threatened by a series of chilling murders in Washington, D.C., murders with a pattern so twisted they leave investigators reeling. Cross's pursuit of the killer produces a suspect, a British diplomat named Geoffrey Shafer. But proving he's the murderer becomes a potentially deadly task.

Two killers, one operating in America — one in Europe — believe Alex Cross is the only worthy opponent in the deadly game each has planned. And Alex must contend with something he hasn't known since the loss of his wife: he's falling deeply in love, and this romance will make him, and her, all the more vulnerable...