Yang Jiang, thirty-two, is deputy captain of the major crimes squad in the Linjiang City Criminal Investigation Brigade. He has solved countless cases and is recognized throughout the province’s criminal investigation system as a genius. But lately, he has begun noticing things that don’t add up. His blood appears at crime scenes. Notes in his notebook appear from nowhere, written in a hand that isn’t his. His reflection smiles at him with an unfamiliar expression. Most unsettling of all, great stretches of his memory have begun to vanish, and those missing periods coincide exactly with the times of several murders. He cannot remember where he was on the night Zhou Haisheng was killed. On the strip of cloth stuffed into the mouth of an unidentified male corpse found in the western suburbs, someone has signed his name in his blood. The palm of every victim bears a strange five-pointed star. As the investigation deepens, Yang Jiang edges closer to the truth, and step by step, closer to the darkest secret buried within himself...
