Ethan Black delivers another lightning-paced, darkly compelling novel of suspense featuring NYPD detective Conrad Voort -- in which a tragic error from the past holds the key to stopping an oddly sympathetic killer bent on the worst kind of revenge.
Three more by tonight. Your fault. That's the dire message Conrad Voort receives on his birthday, standing over a dead stranger. With both his career and his life in jeopardy, Voort races against time to hunt down an ingenious killer whose threat has sent the city into a state of panic.
But as more victims fall, Voort realizes that a forgotten incident from his days as a rookie cop may, in fact, be the driving force behind the slayings. For the day's terror is not merely the senseless act of a demented mind, but the impassioned vengeance of a man who has suffered loss beyond endurance. And Conrad Voort is going to pay....
This is a thriller, not a mystery. We learn more about the killer than we do about the detective. The flashbacks are sometimes confusing, but they work out in the end. It is a serial killer. On the loose until the end.
You can't really believe this cat-and-mouse game between the richest cop in the NYPD and a serial killer with a very personal grudge, but you can admire the craft with which the author cranks up the suspense, gradually reveals a bunch of Things that are Not What They Seem, and shifts your sympathies all around.