Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor has helped psychologist Alex Delaware crack tough cases in the past. And in Jonathan Kellermanβs New York Times bestseller Billy Straight she took the lead in the desperate hunt for a teenage runaway stalked by a vengeful murderer. Now the complex and wryly compassionate Petra is once again at the center of the action, in a novel of cunning twists and page- turning suspense.
Lifeless bodies sprawl in a dance-club parking lot after a brutal L.A. drive-by. Of the four seemingly random victims, one stands out: a girl with pink shoes who cannot be identifiedβand who, days later, remains a Jane Doe. With zero leads and no apparent motive, itβs another case destined for the cold fileβuntil Petra decides to follow her instincts and descends into a world of traveling grifters and bloodthirsty killers, pursuing a possible eyewitness whose life is in mortal danger.
Finding her elusive quarryβaliveβisnβt all Petra has on her plate: departmental politics threatens to sabotage her case, and her personal life isnβt doing much better. If all that wasnβt enough, Isaac Gomez, a whiz-kid grad student researching homicide statistics at the station house, is convinced heβs stumbled upon a bizarre connection between several unsolved murders. The victims had nothing in common, yet each died by the same method, on the same dateβ a date thatβs rapidly approaching again. And that leaves Petra with little time to unravel the twisted logic of a cunning predator whoβs evaded detection for yearsβand whose terrible hour is once more at hand.
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