When Detective Nic Costa arrives at the scene, he is unprepared for what he finds, or for the ambush that leaves his only witness vanished into the night. The dead woman was American. Within hours, U.S. agents descend with a take-no-prisoners style and a shocking story to tell: the killer has struck before, in monuments all over the world, leaving the same cryptic message carved onto the bodies of the victims.
But one agent, beautiful, blond Emily Deacon, has yet another story to tell Nicβabout a stunning act of deception that may lead back to the U.S. government, and her own chilling, personal connection to the killer. Now, as the first murder leads to more grisly slayings and a motley crew of veteran Roman cops jousts with the Americans, Nic is pulled into a womanβs harrowing search for the truthβ¦a search that will take them both into the mind of a madman, into a shocking conspiracyβand into a dark episode in a nationβs long-forgotten past.