Lincoln Rhyme is the world's foremost criminologist But an accident has shattered his spine and confined him to his bed forever Percey Clay, the owner of a struggling charter flight service, finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time and is now the target of an unstoppable professional killer called the Coffin Dancer - a murderer who knows Lincoln only too well Together, Lincoln and his assistant, NYPD patrolwoman Amelia Sachs, engage in a desperate fencing match of strategy with an evil genius