Detective Alex Cross is celebrating his birthday when he receives an urgent call. There's been a homicide. Alex is shocked - this time the victim is his niece. Devastated and grief-stricken, Cross vows to track down the killer. As he investigates though, he discovers his niece was not who she seemed - she was a high-class prostitute at an expensive and exclusive club located just outside of Washington DC. As more women working at the same club disappear, it becomes obvious there is more going on than illegal prostitution. Cross will stop at nothing to solve the mystery of these brutal and sadistic murders. But he is being foiled at every turn by bureaucracy and a cover-up that stretches as far as the White House. But what are they hiding? And why? Alex can trust no one and will have to do this alone.