Category: Action/Thriller Publisher: Berkley Penguin Putnam, Inc.
ISBN-10: 0425172341
Type: Fiction
Pages: 374
Copyright: Mar 1 2000
When New Scotland Yard Detective Richard Sharpe is faced with a horrific string of murders involving death by 'Christ on the Cross' crucifixions in the shadow of the East End of London where the name Jack the Ripper still echoes, he calls on the FBI's top forensic investigator, Dr. Jessica Coran to help him solve the case. Jessica jumps at the chance to work with the famous Scotland Yard on a case that is as intriguing as it is frightening with its sinister overtones of religious fantacisim and millenium fears.
Jessica Coran travels to London, England to work her magic and instincts on the most brutal killer she has yet faced, not one who mutilates his victims as in Primal Instinc, not one who canibalizes his victims as in Fatal Instinct, but one who manipulates his victims through their own faith until only a twisted faith is left in the face of this evil, a killer whose victims are willing participants in their own demise. Jessica leaves another and separate case to be solved by her able friend and right hand, J.T. Thorpe. J.T. follows a secondary plot that leads us to the darkest rural area in all of fiction (Diamondback, LA) where he uncovers a murder involving incest, brutality, and enough family hatred to fill several photo albums, all by following the trail of a dead man whose only identifying marks are his full body tattoos. Each story line compliments the other and create a strange resonance that the natuer of evil is such that it is found in the highest--even the holliest--of places and the lowest and the lowliest places on the planet as it travels with us, not far from the surface of us, because it is us, part of the blood root of the primitive mind. A lot of psychology and social commentary fills in the chase for a new kind of killer, the likes of which has not been seen before.
Excerpt
Chapter One Opening Lines:
Charring Cross Pier, River Thames, London, Sept.5, 2000
"Elderly woman, I warrant fifty if she's a day," said Inspector Sharpe to his partner Copperwaite. "Looks like someone's mum, someone local."
Lt. Inspector Stuart Copperwaite...felt compelled to agree with his superior. "You're right of course, Sharpe, just another-nother."
Sharpe thought of the sad term law enforcement in the U.K used for what their American counterparts called a Jane Doe, the British equivalent being A.N.Other. Murdered but murdered in an unmistakably brutal and bizarre fashion. Makes this nobody something altogether unique--a victim of having been nailed to a cross of some sort--crucified."
Chapter Two Opening Lines:
Quote: Beware the man of one book -- Isacc D' Israeli
FBI Headquarters and Forensic Labs, Quantico, Virginia, Sept.21, 2000
When Dr. Jessica Coran first heard tell of the body in the Chesterfiled, New Jersey junkyard, she'd had no idea that it would hold so much fascination for her and her team....(In fact) she found the head-to-toe tattoo art work covering the murder victim's body mesmerizing.
....She hated destroying the artwork that was this 'body electric' any further than it had already been obliterated by some hundred plus gaping wounds, dog bites..
Jason Donovan has a secret.
The Clere's Restaurant's drama has been unfolding in front of his eyes. If he can see it, so can the restaurant's other guests. But there's something the servers aren't telling him, and he will get to the bottom o
Forced to put the schooner Heimdall into dry-dock for repairs and modifications, the crew chooses to holiday in Southern Utah so they can rendezvous with the Professor, a brilliant confidant from Rabat. What he shares at the summit stuns the crew and
