A quadriplegic since a beam crushed his spinal cord years ago, renowned detective Lincoln Rhyme is desperate to improve his condition and goes to the University of North Carolina Medical Center for high-risk experimental surgery. But he and his beloved forensic assistant, Amelia Sachs, have hardly settled in when the local authorities come calling - a disturbed teenager known, for reasons that become graphically clear, as the Insect Boy, has murdered a local football hero and abducted two young women. Lincoln must examine the trace evidence found at the abduction site in the faint hope of pinpointing the kidnapper's location.