A businessman snatched from an Upper East Side street in broad daylight; a miniature hangman's noose left at the scene. A nine-year-old girl is the only witness to the crime. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are called in to investigate. Soon the case takes a stranger turn: a recording surfaces of the victim being slowly hanged, his desperate gasps the backdrop to an eerie piece of music. The video is marked as the work of The Composer. When a similar kidnapping occurs on a dusty road outside Naples, Italy, Rhyme and Sachs don't hesitate to rejoin the hunt. But the search is now a complex case of international cooperation-- and not all those involved may be who they seem.