It's a scorching California summer, and cop-turned-crime-writer, Russ Monroe is on the hottest story of his career. A serial killer is massacring entire families in Orange County. The police are keeping the murders under wraps, but Monroe has a desperate "need to know". Why? Because the latest victim is his ex-lover. However, her murder is not reported and the next day all traces of the crime vanish. The only two people who think it ever happened are Russ, and the man he saw leave the scene of the crime as he arrived - a Laguna Beach homicide detective. Each suspects the other and they begin separate investigations to prove the other's guilt, exposing a terrifying web of greed, duplicity, and passion. "Hard to put down, harder to forget."--San Diego Union-Tribune "Like careening down a steep road without brakes."--Detroit Free Press
Samantha Henderson's smooth-talking husband, Gunn, the King of Sales, is offered a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity. The proposal: come aboard a startup company as national sales strategist and reap the enormous rewards -- a $250,000 salary, private schools for the kids, a beachside estate complete with cook, caretaker, and limo driver. Sam can hardly believe the offer. It all sounds too good to be true. And it is. It most certainly is. Make no mistake: the Hendersons are in big trouble. Their lives are about to be sliced open and placed under a microscope manned by a psychopath. Crafted by a master of psychological suspense, comes a slightly twisted and wholly terrifying new thriller . . . a dizzying tale of sin and its dark consequences in the cat-and-mouse tradition of "A Kiss Before Dying" and "Double Indemnity".
Telcommunications magnate Matthew Marshall is dead from a stroke; his wife and three children are stunned to learn that half of his $105 million estate has been bequeathed in a codicil to his will to a child they never knew existed, the product of an affair years before during Marshall's service in Vietnam. The estate hires Adam Bruno, an ex-lawyer, street-smart son of a bookie, to find out if this child is still alive. Bruno knows how to negotiate New York's minefields of class, identity, and politics but is thwarted at every turn by the convoluted legacy of Matthew Marshall, whose closely held secrets constitute a nearly rock-solid façade. Bruno's job suddenly becomes more dangerous when old secrets surface and the heirs get desperate.
In Seattle, they're calling him The Pied Piper - someone who comes in the night and takes children away. To newly promoted police lieutenant Lou Boldt and police psychologist Daphne Matthews, it's clear this isn't about a single lunatic or random kidnappings: these crimes are well orchestrated, well executed, and, most chilling of all, occurring in cities across the country. Boldt is the first to establish that behind the kidnappings is a well-financed and brilliantly planned network, and his investigation soon attracts the FBI, which also brings heavy manpower - and political competition - that Boldt fears could slow them down until the trail runs dry. As long as the kidnappings continue, there may be a chance of getting the children back alive. Or is it already too late?
A strange series of fires is raging in Seattle - white-hot fires that burn so cleanly even the ash is consumed, along with all traces of the fires' victims. Brilliant forensic investigator Police Sergeant Lou Boldt is back, battling the mysterious arsonist. He is also keeping his eye on the Fire Warden, who seems to be a little too close to the heat. But police psychologist Daphne Matthews is more concerned about the victims of the blazes, especially the smart and wily ten-year-old boy who had a terrifying encounter with a disfigured, badly burned man. Beyond Recognition is the story of a deadly, taunting game of cat and mouse, where the stakes are raised to a burning point that might spell disaster for Boldt - and the city of Seattle.
