About This Book
Introducing a new voice in the world of suspense fiction...Jeff Pate, a veteran police detective takes you on a roller-coaster ride of suspense and intrigue into the mind of a monster. North Carolina has a serial killer in its midst... In January 1997, the body of a young woman is found unclothed in rural Hertford County—apparently strangled to death. Enter Special Agent Clark Hager of the SBI's Investigative Support Unit. He and his partner, Lloyd Sheridan delve into this mysterious death and tie it to a similar murder in Wilmington which occurred five months earlier...and then, a week later, the body of another woman is found in Greensboro. As he plunges deeper into this bizarre case, Hager, an FBI-trained profiler, soon discovers all the victims are linked together by a powerful force that motivates a man to commit the ultimate act. Three women had fallen prey to the lurid fantasies of a monster. Forced to go public, Hager reluctantly gives the killer what he knows he desires...fame and recognition for his deeds. After learning Hager is on his trail, the killer decides to make it a game of hunting the hunter inducing horrific terror that forces Hager to reckon with his own sense of justice. While in pursuit of a vicious killer, Hager also has to contend with his personal demons: a blossoming relationship with his current love interest, Vanessa Roman, and the feelings of guilt over the death of his wife, five years before. At the same time, he has to keep tabs with his 20-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, who evokes the strain of spreading her wings. Amid a frenzy of public hysteria and psychological terror, Hager battles the most difficult case of hiscareer—and his life. Cloaked in a shroud of mystery until his identity is revealed, the killer forces a climactic battle pitting the forces of good against evil in a spine-tingling death match where it's...Winner Take All. Powerfully written and marvelously plotted...Jeff Pate explodes onto the literary scene with a stunning debut novel. With surgical precision, he has interwoven the graphic realism of true crime with the gripping drama of fiction, resulting in a nail-biting thriller.
