Three parallel scratches marred her car’s gleaming finish.

The bundle of files she was carrying slid from her numb hands, papers scattering across the pavement. The hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood up. A few paces from her car she came to a halt and stared at the passenger door. As she walked toward the Lexus, she was alert to every shadow around her, to every stray noise, every hint of movement. The images of Theresa and Nikki Wells still haunted her. Darkness had fallen, and her car sat isolated under a yellow pool of light cast by the streetlamp. an icy and cunning woman who could be responsible for giving Maura life–and who just may have a plan to take it away.When she walked out of the building fifteen minutes later, she saw that the Saab and the Toyota were indeed gone except for her black Lexus, the only other vehicles in the parking lot were the three morgue vans, stenciled with the words: OFFICE OF THE MEDICAL EXAMINER, COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. To stop the massacre and uncover the twisted truth about her own roots, Maura must probe her first living subject: the mother that she never knew. But perhaps more frightening, an unknown murderer is at large on a cross-country killing spree. Searching for answers, Maura is drawn to a seaside town in Maine where other horrifying surprises await. And when a DNA test confirms that Maura’s mysterious doppelgänger is in fact her twin sister, an already bizarre murder investigation becomes a disturbing and dangerous excursion into a past full of dark secrets. For the stunned Maura, an only child, there can be just one explanation. Even more chilling is the discovery that they share the same birth date and blood type.

Yet there can be no denying the mind-reeling evidence before her shocked eyes and those of her colleagues, including Detective Jane Rizzoli: the woman found shot to death outside Maura’s home is the mirror image of Maura, down to the most intimate physical nuances. Because never before has the lifeless body on the medical examiner’s table been her own. But never before has her blood run cold, and never has the grim expression “dead ringer” rung so terrifyingly true.

As a pathologist in a major metropolitan city, she has seen more than her share of corpses every day–many of them victims of violent murder. Maura Isles makes her living dealing with death. Maura Isles literally meets her match–and must face a savage serial killer and shattering personal revelations–in the brilliant new novel of suspense by the New York Times bestselling author of The Surgeon and The Sinner.

Body double by tess gerritsen