Scribner
December 2006
On Sale: December 12, 2006
Featuring: Alexandra Morse; Chris Shepard
528 pages ISBN: 0743292499 EAN: 9780743292498 Kindle: B000OVLKOU Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
"If you wanted to kill your spouse and get away with it,
you had to do something truly ingenious: something that
wouldn't even be perceived as murder. And that was the
service that Andrew Rusk had found a way to provide. Like
any quality product, it did not come cheap. Nor did it come
quickly. And perhaps most important of all, it was not for
those with weak constitutions. Demand was high, of course,
but few people were truly suitable clients. It took a deep-
rooted hatred to watch your spouse die in agony, knowing
that you had brought about that pain. But on the other
hand, some people bore up remarkably well."
Dr. Chris Shepard is thirty-six years old, newly married,
and well on his way to a perfect life. Or so he believes.
But that future is forever cast into doubt the day Special
Agent Alexandra Morse walks into his office and drops a
bombshell: Dr. Shepard's beautiful new wife is plotting his
murder. Shepard is so shocked that he almost throws Agent
Morse out of his office. Yet once he is alone, doubt begins
to gnaw at him. Paranoia magnifies the small cracks in his
marital relationship, and soon he can have no peace unless
he knows the truth. When Agent Morse reappears, Chris
agrees to act as bait to help her unravel the divorce
lawyer's scheme, which may already have cost nine
unsuspecting spouses their lives.
At the center of the mystery lies a maddeningly simple
question: If these people really were murdered, why can't
the FBI prove it? Rigorous autopsies have uncovered no
forensic evidence of foul play, and the police believe no
crimes have occurred. As Dr. Shepard and Agent Morse
struggle against an invisible adversary, Shepard realizes
that he's working with a desperate woman. The reason: the
killer's last known victim was Alex Morse's sister, who
from her deathbed accused her husband of murder and
extracted a vow that Alex save her ten-year-old nephew from
his father. This has driven Alex to risk both her life and
her career to fulfill that vow. But Chris Shepard soon
feels desperation of his own. As he probes his wife's
hidden past, he is confronted by the probability that the
woman he loves wants him dead.
He has adopted her son and given her everything he has to
give, and yet somewhere out there, a killer with the
brilliance to outwit the top forensic scientists in the
world is closing in on him.