Sally Donaldson is twenty-three years old and six months pregnant when her life suddenly ends. Her devastated husband, Kevin, is willing to grasp at any straw; when sounds are reported coming from the grave, he demands an exhumation. Reporter Kate Hemingway sneaks into the suburban graveyard to see the coffin opened. An American living in England, she is trying to get over a painful love affair - and to break her way out of traffic death and human interest stories. What Kate sees is so horrific that she can't - and won't - forget it. Fighting off pressure from the medical establishment, she plunges into the middle of a sinister and macabre cover-up. At its center is a respected anesthetist with a dangerous and secret obsession with life after death.