Alex Morgan returns from a short overseas sabbatical just in time to witness the burial of his pregnant fiancee, Elizabeth. According to the pathologist she died from an undiagnosed congenital heart condition; but to Alex her autopsy report and a mysterious email from a German testing laboratory suggest otherwise, that she was poisoned with one of the most powerful toxins known. His investigation leads him to the university department where she worked and to her recent medical breakthrough, a discovery she was obliged to keep secret even from him. But what did she discover and did it have anything to do with what happened to her? As Alex struggles to answer these questions, he soon realizes that he cannot trust colleagues and friends he has known for years. In the meantime, one of them has been monitoring his every move and plans to kill him, to make it appear that he committed suicide, overcome by grief at the death of his beloved Elizabeth . . .