Forensic pathologist Joanna Blalock is called to the scene, expected to make sense of the senseless violence, which appears to be the handiwork of incompetent terrorists, who blew themselves up along with so many innocent lives. But when Joanna uncovers a link in the evidence to an unsolved homicide, a more sinister picture emerges; and when the only potential witness to the bomb blast is killed, a case of accidental death suddenly looks like an incredibly daring and diabolical plot of cold-blooded murder.