A vampire cult, a killer cop, and Alex Cross running out of people to trust.
Who drives the story
D.C. detective and forensic psychiatrist, grieving Cavalierre and hunted by the Mastermind. He chases a tiger through a vampire case, gets bitten, gets broken into, and still makes the save.
San Francisco inspector whose pattern-spotting cracks the vampire case open. She matches Cross's work ethic, and by the end she's officially dating him.
Cross's FBI friend, secretly the Mastermind, calling in murder tips while planning his next kill. He ends the book in prison.
Two brothers playing vampire, feasting on the dead and courting publicity. They murder their own Sire as a coup, and they're the killers all along.
A magician who led a vampire scene across several murder cities. His own followers kill him at his party.
Also in the story
Dental expert at the morgue whose bite-mark analysis splits the case in two: a tiger for the man, human teeth for the girl.
Cross's old rescue from Kiss the Girls, now a possible target of the Mastermind. Alex warns her to get out of town and races to her home.
How they are connected
She matches Cross's work ethic, and by the end she's officially dating him.
Cross's FBI friend, secretly the Mastermind, calling in murder tips while planning his next kill.
They murder their own Sire as a coup, and they're the killers all along.
Cross's old rescue from Kiss the Girls, now a possible target of the Mastermind.
Go deeper
Evil as performance · The traitor inside · Patterns and the people who break them · Family as the thing worth protecting
Themes explainedThe full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.
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