The body parts were first discovered in the bellies of sharks. Marine scientists in the Florida Keys insist sharks rarely dine on live humans, so there can be only one explanation: They were dead before they hit the water. Dr. Jessica Coran knows why. They call him the "Night Crawler." And he's out there, riding the tides with his victims, feeding the waves after his own perverse hungers are satisfied. But when similar murders surface in London, on the Thames River, Jessica faces double jeopardy. One killer? Or two...
Aka Geoffrey Caine, Glenn Hale, Evan Kingsbury, Stephen Robertson
Master of suspense and bone-chilling terror, Robert W. Walker, BS and MS in English Education, Northwestern University, has penned 44 novels and has taught language and writing for over 25 years. Showing no signs of slowing down, he is currently juggling not one but three new series ideas, and has completed a film script and a TV treatment. Having grown up in Chicago and having been born in the shadow of the Shiloh battlefield, near Corinth, Mississippi, Walker has two writing traditions to uphold--the Windy City one and the Southern one--all of which makes him uniquely suited to write City for Ransom and its sequels, Shadows in White City and City of the Absent. His Dead On will be published in July 2009. Walker is currently working on a new romantic-suspense-historical-mainstream novel, titled Children of Salem. In 2003 and 2004 Walker saw an unprecedented seven novels released on the "unsuspecting public," as he puts it. Final Edge, Grave Instinct, and Absolute Instinct were published in 2004. City of the Absent debuted in 2008 from Avon. Walker lives in Charleston, West Virginia.
This is definitely not for the faint of heart. It's a very intense tale of a serial killer making his rounds in southern Florida and the Carribean. What I especially love is there isn't just one perspective. The author shows you many character points of view. The reader gets a very in depth look at the whole story. The killer is cunning and crafty, and the law enforcement is dedicated and forceful. It is definitely a great read. I so look forward to reading the other books that are a part of this series.
I thought this would never end. I have rarely been so bored by the hunt for a serial killer, real or fictional. Good gracious.
The writing is not very good. The characters are meh. I didn't know it was part of a series when I first downloaded it and started reading it about 10 years ago. Seriously, I'll have to check the exact number of years, but it's been such a slog. I've been picking it up here and there, only to make it through a page or two at the time before giving up again. Anyway, you're expected to know these characters already and, I guess, care about them.
Other than typos and formatting issues with the ebook, my other problem is the number of random characters who pop up and bog things down. Because it seems we have to hear the history and detailed inner workings of each and every one. Not sure why we need an entire chapter about what some new person is thinking and feeling, only to have them play a miniscule role and vanish.
I can't say it better than this actual quotation when one (minor) character is rumored to be publishing a book: "it takes a certain amount of arrogance on the part of anybody to write a book, to believe they have enough to say to the world and that people—strangers to them— are going to actually be riveted to ink markings on a page."
whereas this is a good read, i think it ends with an anticlimax. i guess it stems from my deep need to see what the court's of justice wold have done with the villain. but as it is, all is well that ends well
Only read if you're into graphic depictions of postmortem exams, autopsies and modes of death. Other than that its got an easy plot line, though it can ramble off topic here and there. I would read this author again.