Medical examiners and husband-and-wife pair Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery are consumed with worry for their young son, who has been diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer. But, as always, Jack turns to his work for solace; after performing a postmortem on a promising young woman who had recently been treated by a chiropractor, he begins researching alternative medicine as a way to avoid obsessing about his child's illness.

Meanwhile, Jack's college buddy, a renowned archaeologist and biblical scholar, makes a spectacular find at a souk in Cairo: an ancient codex, whose contents may vault him to international fame--and jeopardize the very nature of papal infallibility. And the bishop of the Archdiocese of New York, another former classmate, turns to Jack to help safeguard an explosive secret, one with the power to change lives forever...