FBI Medical Examiner Dr. Jessica Coran's talents have been requested in Philadelphia in the wake of a series of bizarre murders attributed to a maniac called The Poet. His calling card is a scroll of human parchment engraved with toxic verse. For Jessica the most baffling aspect of the crimes is that no victims show signs of resistance, or even fear. Only she has the insight to rad between the Poet's lines, to decipher the meaning of his deranged work-in-progress, and to stop him before his final stroke of insane genius.