Biology graduate Anna Bella Nor is just two weeks away from defending her thesis on the origin of birds when her supervisor Lars Helland is found dead in his office, his severed tongue lying on his bloodied shirtfront, a copy of her thesis lying in his lap. Police Superintendent Soren Marhauge is assigned to unravel what appears to be a multitude of intrigues in the Biology Department of Copenhagen University. Helland had been deliberately infected with a rare parasite that only an expert in the field would have access to. But when Anna Bella's fellow graduate and close friend is also killed, the murders seem to be linked not only to the university but also to Anna herself. As Marhauge investigates he comes up against the vicious competition for academic success, dark secrets from the past - all against the fabulous backdrop of palaeontology's age-old mysteries