Kiss Them Good-Bye — Joseph Eastburn

Sitting atop a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside, the Ravenhill School is a bastion of exclusivity, offering the children of the nation's first families a magnificent education and a refuge from the harsh realities beyond its ancient cloisters -- until the first student is found dead, upside down in a campus garbage can.

When the body count rises, it becomes clear that Ravenhill has been invaded by a serial killer with a particularly gruesome appetite for display, each successive slaying more grotesque than the last. As the clues multiply, panic grips the environs of Ravenhill, and expert Nick Fowler is called in from out of town to break the case. From the school's administrator who wants to keep the crimes under wraps to the police who resent an outsider's intrusion, Nick's investigation isn't sitting well with the locals.

As Nick draws closer to penetrating the killer's twisted mind, he soon becomes a target. And when the murderer plants a series of taunting clues for Nick, he must tread carefully if he hopes to avoid a psychopath's deadly trap.

“Latches on to you . . . and won't let go. . . . Eastburn has a truly diabolical mind . . . this book funnels you to death and horror with the frightening inevitability of a physical law.” -- D. Keith Mano, author of Topless