In the rugged mountains of upstate New York, a predator unlike any other is stalking and seducing his prey. Endowed with abilities and instincts far more advanced than any man, he is guided only by the desire to survive, and to feed. Dr. Terri Barnard knows something is wrong. Young women are being found abandoned, barely alive -- only to then die from diseases so rare that they should be an impossibility. In each case, the victims are completely devoid of a single vital nutrient, as if they were literally stolen from their bodies. For while the killer appears as a model of physical perfection, his mind and body are tortured by the truth. With no identity and no past, all he knows is that he needs. He is a monstrous miracle of modern science set loose upon the world, and with him comes a hunger that will never be sated.