Pendergast is drawn to the remains of a 19th-century charnel house, unearthed at a construction site in New York and finds himself investigating a copycat killer.

In downtown Manhattan, workers on a construction site breach a long-forgotten basement, unearthing a charnel house: thirty-six bodies, systematically dismembered and carefully immured at least 130 years ago.

It's just the kind of case to intrigue the unorthodox and enigmatic FBI agent Aloysius X.L. Pendergast. But he's not the only interested party. Soon after the bodies are discovered a killer strikes .

Their victim's corpse bears the same precise mutilations as the bodies in the basement. The nightmare has begun. Again.