It begins with a shocking unsolved murder. In small town in southern Illinois the butchered body of Linda Balfour--with a cryptic code printed in blood on the back of her head--forges a gruesome link to the brutal murder of Bishop Rushman the beloved Chicago clergyman who had been dismembered years before by the angelic-looking altar boy Aaron Stampler. The same Aaron Stampler whom defense attorney Martin Vail saved from the electric chair...

Now Vail is Chicago-s chief prosecutor facing the nightmare of his life. If Stampler has been locked away in a high-security institution for the past ten years how could he have killed Linda Balfour? Then another altar boy turns up dead with a similar inscription in blood on the back of his head. If Aaron Stampler isn-t committing these killings who is? Martin Vail-s career--maybe even his life--hangs on the answer...