Pope John Paul II is dead, and 115 cardinals are called to the Vatican in order to elect the new Pope. With Rome under siege to foreign press and thousand of mourners, the last thing it needs is a serial killer on the loose... Paola Dicanti is a profiler who works with the Italian police - but so far all her experience of serial killers is theoretical. That is until a cardinal is found murdered, his eyes destroyed, his hands cut off. And it seems that this is not the first victim, Paola's investigations are helped by Anthony Fowler, a priest from the States. But Fowler is no ordinary priest - he clearly has links to the CIA, and knows a lot more about the serial killer than Dicanti could ever have guessed...
