Mortal Fear
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4.2 • 35 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
A man with a secret life risks everything to clear his name in this “ingenious suspense thriller”(The New York Times Book Review) from the bestselling author of the Penn Cage series.
By day, Harper Cole trades commodities from his isolated home in the Mississippi Delta. By night he leads quite a different life, serving as a systems operator for an exclusive, annonymous erotic online service that caters to the rich and famous. But now a stranger has penetrated the network's state-of-the-art security, brutally murdering six celebrated female clients.
Falsely accused of these horrible crimes, Harper realizes there's only one way to lure the elusive madman offline and into the open. But as he enacts his daring plan, Harper will put everything and everyone he holds dear directly in the path of a brilliant, unstoppable killer...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Yet another serial killer stalks the Internet, this one courtesy of the talented Iles (Black Cross; Spandau Phoenix). When futures trader Harper Cole, who moonlights as the systems operator of an erotic online services called EROS, contacts the New Orleans police with information about the murder of celebrated author-and EROS subscriber-Karin Wheat, he immediately becomes the prime suspect in six other murders of EROS subscribers across the country. Also on the FBI's short list is Cole's eccentric friend and EROS colleague Miles Turner, who has dubbed the killer "Brahma." When Cole learns that the man he thought was Brahma was killed a year ago and that his online identity was stolen, a tense cat-and-mouse game commences. Professional hunters, like FBI psychiatric profiler Arthur Lenz, have the online tables turned on them time and again by an insanely brilliant murderer, and it's up to Cole to render justice. His digging leads to an exciting payoff when he goes online and poses as a potential victim, using as bait a secret that endangers the mother of his child, as well as his wife. While Cole's obsession over this guilty secret makes him less than likable at times, a nailbiting climax erases any doubts about his character-and any lingering questioning about the storytelling abilities of Iles, who here uses rich first-person narration and clever plotting to tell a sizzler of a thriller. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection; simultaneous Penguin Audio Book.
