In New York, a serial killer has started operating, and he has obvious plans for the future. He’s obsessed with counting time precisely and calls himself the Watchmaker. The final minutes of his victims’ lives are counted by an antique clock with a moon depicted on its face—he leaves that clock at the crime scene, and it’s the only lead.
Brilliant forensic specialist Lincoln Rhyme, confined to a wheelchair, together with his student and assistant Amelia Sachs, takes on the investigation of this unusual case. This time, a new strong player joins the team of detectives: Catherine Dances, a police psychologist and specialist in kinesics—the language of the body, because “the most dangerous criminals are usually those whose motives are hardest to understand.” But the killer’s logic is elusive, so is he himself—unpredictable, planning every step and every second within horrific scenarios of murder…