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Lucas Frank #1
The Prettiest Feathers
Sarah Sinclair was the perfect victim--she wanted to die.
When a darkly enigmatic man approaches her in the small antiquarian book store where she works, Sarah is drawn into a slow dance toward death. A death she couldn't stop even if she wanted to. She is stalked, yet blindly charmed. And when he kills her, seductively, silently, she smiles.
Sarah's ex-husband, police officer Robert Sinclair, is the first to find her body and he calls it in to the one officer who will his ex-mistress Detective Lane Frank. As Lane struggles to follow the increasingly elusive trail of clues, another macabre trail emerges--of bodies, coldly, tauntingly abandoned.
As the FBI becomes involved, Lane must fight to retain her hold on the case and her grip on Robert Sinclair, whose grief sinks him further into an alcoholic haze of despair and desperation. As a calculating last resort, Lane calls on the one man who can help her stop the killing, a forensic psychiatrist who had stepped too close to the edge, crawled too deeply into the mind of evil. She calls a profiler who has dropped out of society, living simply in a cabin in the woods far away from the madness that called to him, threatened him. Lane calls her father.
As they work together, Lane and her father slowly craft an image of a killer so brilliant he has murdered perhaps hundreds and never been caught, so cold that he cannot relinquish his power. With a tortuous trail of names and faces, the killer has insulated himself from those who would repress him and his need to kill, a need rooted in a disturbing, horrifying childhood.
And as Lane and her father grow closer to finding the killer, the game becomes personal between two men on opposing sides of evil, men on the edge of an abyss of madness, from which there is only one escape--death.
When a darkly enigmatic man approaches her in the small antiquarian book store where she works, Sarah is drawn into a slow dance toward death. A death she couldn't stop even if she wanted to. She is stalked, yet blindly charmed. And when he kills her, seductively, silently, she smiles.
Sarah's ex-husband, police officer Robert Sinclair, is the first to find her body and he calls it in to the one officer who will his ex-mistress Detective Lane Frank. As Lane struggles to follow the increasingly elusive trail of clues, another macabre trail emerges--of bodies, coldly, tauntingly abandoned.
As the FBI becomes involved, Lane must fight to retain her hold on the case and her grip on Robert Sinclair, whose grief sinks him further into an alcoholic haze of despair and desperation. As a calculating last resort, Lane calls on the one man who can help her stop the killing, a forensic psychiatrist who had stepped too close to the edge, crawled too deeply into the mind of evil. She calls a profiler who has dropped out of society, living simply in a cabin in the woods far away from the madness that called to him, threatened him. Lane calls her father.
As they work together, Lane and her father slowly craft an image of a killer so brilliant he has murdered perhaps hundreds and never been caught, so cold that he cannot relinquish his power. With a tortuous trail of names and faces, the killer has insulated himself from those who would repress him and his need to kill, a need rooted in a disturbing, horrifying childhood.
And as Lane and her father grow closer to finding the killer, the game becomes personal between two men on opposing sides of evil, men on the edge of an abyss of madness, from which there is only one escape--death.
336 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 31, 1997
3 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
John Philpin
14 books14 followersAuthor John Philpin, one of the first independent criminal profilers, is an internationally recognized expert on violent behavior and criminal investigation. Philpin is a frequent consultant to law enforcement and the media.
Philpin has been a guest commentator on Court TV, 20/20 Downtown, Unsolved Mysteries, America's Most Wanted, Inside Edition, Chronicle, The Geoff Metcalf Show, The Jim Bohannon Show, Northwest Afternoon and CBC's As It Happens.
Philpin is a regular contributor of exclusive true crime commentaries and short stories for KariSable.com True Crime and Justice Web site.
A retired psychologist, he has authored and co-written seven books and numerous articles, and the featured character in an eighth, drawing on his experience.
A recipient of numerous awards for contributions in murder investigations, his forensic work was featured in Philip E. Ginsburg's Shadow of Death the investigation of a series of murders along interstate highway corridors of Vermont and New Hampshire in the 1980s.
Philpin has been a guest commentator on Court TV, 20/20 Downtown, Unsolved Mysteries, America's Most Wanted, Inside Edition, Chronicle, The Geoff Metcalf Show, The Jim Bohannon Show, Northwest Afternoon and CBC's As It Happens.
Philpin is a regular contributor of exclusive true crime commentaries and short stories for KariSable.com True Crime and Justice Web site.
A retired psychologist, he has authored and co-written seven books and numerous articles, and the featured character in an eighth, drawing on his experience.
A recipient of numerous awards for contributions in murder investigations, his forensic work was featured in Philip E. Ginsburg's Shadow of Death the investigation of a series of murders along interstate highway corridors of Vermont and New Hampshire in the 1980s.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 6, 2024
Not so awesome. I could tell that it was written by two different authors and I found the ending steps fairly predictable. The beginning was pretty interesting and paced well, but as the story progressed, it got slower and much less consistently put together. I did like the concept that the serial killer was hunting Sarah down because she had always knew it was her destiny to die. I wish they had fleshed that out better and with more history.
April 6, 2022
This is a very scary read! It is written is first person so you know what the killer planning, thinking and feeling! The characters are as written in first person so same applies. It’s a very different way to read about a serial killer.
December 28, 2021
Excellent.
January 11, 2012
5 stars, highly recommended
A serial killer, his victim who wants to die. The profiler, the cop. The chase. The Prettiest Feathers has it all and then some.
John Wolf meets Sarah Sinclair. A woman who wants to die. Over the course of a few days, John Wolf helps Sarah Sinclair meet the destiny she has unknowingly been walking towards all her life. By killing her, he exposes himself to his ultimate destiny - Dr Lucas Frank, a criminal profiler with a speciality in catching the serial killers he seems to know so well.
Co-author John Philpin, himself a criminal profiler, gets inside the mind of John Wolf so deeply that you cannot help but respond to him, understand him on a very basic level. With that understanding comes the knowledge that but for circumstances, any one of us could be John Wolf.
I found myself comparing this book to the Dexter books, of which I have read the first and have started the second. While Dexter has certainly popularised the rise of the serial killer as a likable character, John Philpin's portrayal of John Wolf brings us back to the evil a serial killer truly is. A being without conscience, or rather a being true to his own warped conscience.
Between them, Patricia Sierra and John Philpin have done a top notch job in bringing out the characters in this novel. If delving into the mind of a serial killer is your thing, then this book is well worth the purchase price.
A serial killer, his victim who wants to die. The profiler, the cop. The chase. The Prettiest Feathers has it all and then some.
John Wolf meets Sarah Sinclair. A woman who wants to die. Over the course of a few days, John Wolf helps Sarah Sinclair meet the destiny she has unknowingly been walking towards all her life. By killing her, he exposes himself to his ultimate destiny - Dr Lucas Frank, a criminal profiler with a speciality in catching the serial killers he seems to know so well.
Co-author John Philpin, himself a criminal profiler, gets inside the mind of John Wolf so deeply that you cannot help but respond to him, understand him on a very basic level. With that understanding comes the knowledge that but for circumstances, any one of us could be John Wolf.
I found myself comparing this book to the Dexter books, of which I have read the first and have started the second. While Dexter has certainly popularised the rise of the serial killer as a likable character, John Philpin's portrayal of John Wolf brings us back to the evil a serial killer truly is. A being without conscience, or rather a being true to his own warped conscience.
Between them, Patricia Sierra and John Philpin have done a top notch job in bringing out the characters in this novel. If delving into the mind of a serial killer is your thing, then this book is well worth the purchase price.
January 27, 2008
This was the first Serial book that I read and it keep me up at night. Not only because it had my mind going a million miles an hour ( I have a very vivid imagination) it was so good I could not put it down.
September 7, 2010
I thought that this book was very entertaining, it keeps you wondering what will happen next. The suspense in this book is very strong, and would recommend it to someone that likes to read crime/mystery books.
September 12, 2011
I'd give this book 3.5 stars. Great concept, but a little slow going at times. Also, some characters get so much attention while others that we want to know more about are skimmed over. I thought I wasn't going to like the ending, but the last few pages changed my mind.
March 21, 2011
I've been looking for a good psychological thriller and this one did not disappoint. I really was into all the characters, it kept me guessing what was going to happen next.
October 30, 2012
I love the narrative style of this author - story from the point of view of the main characters. Looking forward to read the sequel.
September 5, 2014
Loved!Loved!Loved!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews