Bill Wile is an easygoing, hardworking guy who leads a
quiet, ordinary life. But that is about to change. One
evening, after his usual eight-hour bartending shift, he
finds a typewritten note under the windshield wiper of his
car. If you don't take this note to the police and get
them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher.
If you do take this note to the police, I will instead
kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have
four hours to decide. The choice is yours.
It seems like a sick joke, and Bill's friend on the police
force, Lanny Olson, thinks so too. His advice to Bill is
to go home and forget about it. Besides, what could they
do even if they took the note seriously? No crime has
actually been committed. But less than twenty-four hours
later, a young blond schoolteacher is found murdered, and
it's Bill's fault: he didn't convince the police
to get involved. Now he's got another note, another
deadline, another ultimatum...and two new lives hanging in
the balance.
Suddenly Bill's average, seemingly innocuous life takes on
the dimensions and speed of an accelerating nightmare.
Because the notes are coming faster, the deadlines growing
tighter, and the killer becoming bolder and crueler with
every communication-until Bill is isolated with the
terrifying knowledge that he alonehas the power of life
and death over a psychopath's innocent victims. Until the
struggle between good and evil is intensely personal.
Until the most chilling words of all are: The choice is
yours.