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No one conducts a more
chilling, suspenseful, thoroughly engrossing tour through the winding
corridors of criminal behavior and the secret chambers of
psychopathology than Jonathan Kellerman, the bestselling “master of the
psychological thriller” (People). Now the incomparable team of
psychologist Alex Delaware and homicide cop Milo Sturgis embark on their
most dangerous excursion yet, into the dark places where risk runs high
and blood runs cold.It’s a story tailor-made for the nightly
news: Dylan Meserve and Michaela Brand, young lovers and fellow acting
students, vanish on the way home from a rehearsal. Three days later, the
two of them are found in the remote mountains of Malibu -battered and
terrified after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of a sadistic abductor. The
details of the nightmarish event are shocking and brutal: The couple
was carjacked at gunpoint by a masked assailant and subjected to a
horrific regimen of confinement, starvation and assault. But
before long, doubts arise about the couple’s story, and as forensic
details unfold, the abduction is exposed as a hoax. Charged as criminals
themselves, the aspiring actors claim emotional problems, and the court
orders psychological evaluation for both. Michaela is examined
by Alex Delaware, who finds that her claims of depression and stress
ring true enough. But they don’t explain her lies, and Alex is certain
that there are hidden layers in this sordid psychodrama that even he
hasn’t been able to penetrate.Nevertheless, the case is
closed–only to be violently reopened when Michaela is savagely murdered.
When the police look for Dylan, they find that he’s gone. Is he the
killer or a victim himself? Casting their dragnet into the murkiest
corners of L.A., Delaware and Sturgis unearth more questions than
answers–including a host of eerily identical killings. What really
happened to the couple who cried wolf? And what bizarre and brutal
epidemic is infecting the city with terror, madness, and sudden, twisted
death?