California Bureau of Investigation Special agent Kathryn Dance is an expert in kinesics: the science of interpreting behaviour. It makes her a brilliant interrogator. But she's up against Daniel Pell, a master of control who mesmerises, seduces and exploits people for his own murderous ends. A convicted killer who is known as The Son of Manson for the chilling parallels between him and the notorious ritual murderer.

To track down Pell before he destroys yet more lives, Kathyn Dance must enlist the help of four people from the killer's past. The three women who lived under his sadistic sway in the cult he once headed. And the young girl known as the Sleeping Doll, the only survivor of her family's slaughter at Pell's hands . . .