New Year's Eve and the final murder scene of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War takes Dr Kay Scarpetta thirty feet below the Elizabeth River's icy surface. A scuba diver, Ted Eddings, is dead, an investigative reporter who was a favourite at the medical examiner's office. Was Edding's probing the frigid depths of the Inactive Shipyard for a story, or simply diving for sunken trinkets? And why did Scarpetta receive a phone call from someone reporting the death before the police were notified?