Unturned Stones — Scott Prussing

Violence strikes without warning -- and seemingly without reason. An elderly woman is assaulted in her home. The unseen intruder slices her hand off at the wrist, then applies a tourniquet and dials 911 before leaving. An Asian jogger is sprayed with Mace from behind a bush. While the victim is blinded, the assailant breaks his leg with a baseball bat. Finally, a young black transsexual has her breast burned by an assailant who first knocked her unconscious. Though gruesome and mystifying, there seems to be nothing to connect the attacks.

Star detective Robert Foster has been forced to resign from the San Diego Police Department for what his superiors labeled “insubordination.” Foster prefers to call it “thinking outside the box.” Either way, his days on the force are over -- until he makes a surprising discovery. While surveying crime reports provided to him by his former partner, Foster stumbles across the three assaults. As he looks more closely at the details, he recognizes something his former colleagues have missed - these attacks are SO completely different that they have to have been planned that way. But why?

Intrigued by the paradox and by the challenge, Foster launches an unofficial investigation. As the violence escalates and the assaults begin targeting people he loves, Foster finds himself pulled into a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a foe who seems to be every bit as clever as he is.

Add in a beautiful blonde reporter who may not be what she seems, a brilliant psychologist happily turned homeless, a possible split personality, and clues from a Shakespearean play sent by the perpetrator, and you have Unturned Stones, a gripping novel of mystery and suspense you will not soon forget.