Paul Osborn es un joven cirujano norteamericano que de niño presencio el asesinato de su padre. Años mas tarde, se le presenta la oportunidad de vengar al asesino de este cuando casualmente se encuentra con el en una cafeteria de Paris. Osborn estara acompañado de Vera Monneray, una doctora a la que ha conocido en un congreso en Ginebra y con la que mantiene una estrecha relacion. Mientras tanto, el inspector McVey esta investigando una serie de decapitaciones; lo mas curioso es que las cabezas halladas han sido sometidas al grado de congelacion del cero absoluto, algo que se creia imposible de realizar. Este caso le llevara a McVey a viajar a Paris, deonde de manera casual se cruza conOsborn. Mientras tanto, un terrible secreto relacionado con una secta nazi esta a punto de ser descubierto. / Touted as a blockbuster, this assured debut thriller delivers in full--and then some. A young American doctor haunted by his father's murder stumbles into a chilling international conspiracy and crosses paths with, among others, a weary L.A. cop investigating a series of surgically precise decapitations, a naive physical therapist and a hypercompetent German assassin. Dr. Paul Osborn, visiting Paris, recognizes the man whom he witnessed stab his father on a Boston street in 1966. Determined to learn the reason for his father's unsolved death and take revenge, Osborn hatches a plan that unexpectedly leads to the gruesome execution of a hired PI and to other killings. Clearly some serious powers are involved. Soon Osborn, aided by Vera Monneray, a Paris medical student, is hiding out from Paris police, Interpol and the L.A. cop who has been summoned to Paris. Meanwhile, Joanna Marsh accompanies Elton Lybarger, a Swiss national whom she has helped recover from a stroke in a posh New Mexico sanatorium, back to Zurich, where he is greeted rapturously by high-ranking German business leaders. As an extensive Nazi resurgence plot emerges, Folsom adds extra flashes--Joanna in a drug-induced sex marathon, a massive train wreck, Vera's other affair with a very important French leader--to heighten the suspense on these rapidly turning pages. A huge explosion in secret chambers under the streets of Berlin sends Osborn on a final chase through Europe and up into the Alps, where the high-tech hopes of an earlier generation are finally exposed.