Introducing Antonia Scott – the most compelling and original detective since Lisbeth Salander – in the internationally bestselling thriller that has taken the world by storm. Antonia Scott, the daughter of a British diplomat and a Spanish mother, has an IQ of 242 and a gifted forensic mind. Her ability to reconstruct crimes and solve baffling murders is legendary. But what seemed like a gift became a curse, and she ended up losing everything. Now, she rarely leaves her attic apartment in Madrid. Jon Gutierrez, a police officer in Bilbao – disgraced, suspended, and about to face criminal charges – is offered a chance to salvage his career by a secretive organization. All he has to do is succeed where many others have failed: convince a recalcitrant Antonia to come out of her self-imposed retirement and investigate a new, terrifying case of ritualistic murder: a teenage boy from a wealthy family whose body was found without a drop of blood left in it .