A senator dies on the steps of the British Museum - stabbed twenty-three times, a Roman coin on his tongue, and a Latin phrase written in his blood on the columns. His killer has no memory of the act. Silas Thorne, a disgraced ex-MI6 operative turned private security, has seen violence in every form. He's never seen it used as a lecture.

Dr. Elara Moore has spent twenty years building a fortress of books and logic to keep the messy, dangerous world at arm's length. When a hard-eyed stranger drops a retainer on her desk and tells her the killer is going to strike again - and soon - her academic instincts override every ounce of self-preservation she has left. She knows exactly who the next victim is. They have hours. What they uncover is worse than a serial killer. Someone is engineering a city's fear with surgical precision, turning ordinary people into murder weapons using a designer neurotoxin.

Each death is a chapter. Each victim is a tyrant in the killer's private history. And behind the chaos, a charismatic prime minister is already waiting with the solution - a sweeping surveillance bill that would hand him total, unaccountable control. Two killers, one conspiracy, and a city that doesn't know it's already lost. Can a brawler and a scholar stop the lesson before it's complete?

Perfect for fans of: The Da Vinci Code, Alex Rider, The Night Agent, The Alienist, Alex Cross series