Taking a year off from her medical studies and leaving New York City, Pia Grazdani accepts a job at Nanobots, a nanotechnology institute, where she is quickly warned not to investigate the other work done at the facility and not to ask questions about their source of funding.

Behind the prim gates of the Greenwich, Connecticut, McMansions, Wall Street whizzes turn their attentions from mortgages to another possible profit source: the $25 trillion life-insurance industry. By securitizing the policies of the old and sick, they hope to make another financial killing. At the same time, Natalie Savondnik and Ronald Goodall-two exceptional yet aloof medical residents-are working closely with their medical center's premier scientist...