Visit a class where students blow mouthfuls of their own blood onto one another in order to better understand blood-spatter patterns. Attend a workshop studying the effects of temperature and humidity on the life cycle of maggots populating a corpse. Learn how much of someone's history of drug use can be detected in a single strand of hair. Wander the aisles at the annual conference of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, where booths display...

Dr. Jake Rosen, world-famous pathologist, deputy chief medical examiner, and devoted scientist; and top litigator Manny Manfreda, who is as lovely (and accessorized) as she is gutsy, take on a case with a bizarre serial killer. The case begins in New York as a strange kind of thief stalks his victims with the purpose of extracting a vial of blood -- earning him the nickname Vampire in the tabloids. As the attacks escalate from torture to murder,...