Description de l’éditeur
From award-winning author Meg Gardiner, co-author of Michael Mann’s Heat 2--A riveting psychological thriller inspired by the never-caught Zodiac Killer, about a young detective determined to apprehend the serial murderer who destroyed her family and terrorized a city twenty years earlier.
Caitlin Hendrix has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of all her childhood nightmares reemerges: the Prophet. An UNSUB—what the FBI calls an unknown subject—the Prophet terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator on the case.
The Prophet’s cryptic messages and mind games drove Detective Mack Hendrix to the brink of madness, and Mack’s failure to solve the series of ritualized murders—eleven seemingly unconnected victims left with the ancient sign for Mercury etched into their flesh—was the final nail in the coffin for a once promising career.
Twenty years later, two bodies are found bearing the haunting signature of the Prophet. Caitlin Hendrix has never escaped the shadow of her father’s failure to protect their city. But now the ruthless madman is killing again and has set his sights on her, threatening to undermine the fragile barrier she rigidly maintains for her own protection, between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession.
Determined to decipher his twisted messages and stop the carnage, Caitlin ignores her father’s warnings as she draws closer to the killer with each new gruesome murder. Is it a copycat, or can this really be the same Prophet who haunted her childhood? Will Caitlin avoid repeating her father’s mistakes and redeem her family name, or will chasing the Prophet drag her and everyone she loves into the depths of the abyss?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Near the start of this outstanding series launch from Edgar-winner Gardiner (Phantom Instinct), Caitlin Hendrix, a detective with San Francisco's Narcotics Task Force, visits a crime scene in an Alameda County cornfield a brutal double murder. The killer pounded nails into the chests of the two victims, forming the symbol for mercury, the hallmark of the notorious serial killer known as the Prophet who struck the Bay Area during the 1990s, then disappeared. The Prophet is no stranger to Caitlin: her father, Mack Hendrix, was the lead detective on the original case, which left him an emotional wreck and tore his family apart. Soon reassigned to homicide, Caitlin is determined to bring the unsub or unknown subject down this time and finish what her father started. As the body count rises, the stakes become even more personal, as the Prophet targets those closest to Caitlin. Taut pacing and sympathetic characters play against a terrifying villain, who will crawl beneath your skin and trouble your sleep. Thriller fans will eagerly await the sequel. Five-city author tour.
