When a mass grave containing eighteen mutilated female corpses is discovered in Shanghai, detective Li Yan is sent from Beijing to establish if the bodies are linked to an unsolved murder in the capital. Here, Li will be working with Mei Ling, deputy head of Shanghai's serious crime squad.

Mei Ling is a formidable woman: a fact that is not lost on Li's on-again, off-again lover, forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell. But when Campbell, vulnerable and still grieving the death of her father, learns that the victims were subjected to 'live' autopsies, she swallows her pride and joins Li Yan and Mei Ling in the hunt for the murderer.

As Li, Campbell, and Mei Ling enter the arena of a sickening nemesis they are forced to confront each of their very worst nightmares.