The first corpse is found on a river bank.  the second in an isolated farmhouse.  Both have been savagely beaten, their skin flayed, their throats cut.  There’s DNA match for both victims – Charlie Pope, a convicted sex offender recently released of a security hospital.  Pope’s cut himself free from his security ankle bracelet and disappeared.  But there’s something still not right.  The killings were calculated, methodical.  And Pope is of low intelligence, incapable of such forethought and planning.  To track down this killer, Lucas Davenport needs the help of the Big Three – three vicious serial killers locked in the state security hospital, all as cunning as they are deranged.