When a young couple takes possession of their dream home, they can't wait to remodel the neglected mansion. That is until they make a gruesome discovery of a rusted metal strongbox containing two rotting leather doctor's bags. And inside each bag, swaddled in sheets of sixty-year-old newspaper, lies a tiny human skeleton.

The case hits the media, and theories abound. The most likely culprit is a mysterious woman, employed as private nurse to wealthy L.A. families during World War Two and Lieutenant Milo Sturgis consults psychologist Alex Delaware for insight into the perpetrator's motives. But the horror is just beginning.

Two more bags are discovered, but this time the infants inside have been dead less than a month. Is a copycat at work? Or is there a link between the two finds which goes back decades? By the time both cases close, Alex and Milo will have confronted unprecedented narcissism, cruelty, deceit and a cold but fiendish objectification of the human spirit that shakes both men to the core . . .