The lipsticked message on the bathroom mirror harks back to the bloody history of Jack the Ripper. But the dead womanโs computer files point to a high-tech network where lonely people spend solitary nights in steamy talk, sometimes arranging a rendezvous that can lead to love...or murder.
Compu-Mate, run by ex-jockey Max Blinderman and his gorgeous mate, Roberta, seems legitimate enough. The only link among the dead bodies is a bizarre modem operandi and printout of suspects from Compu-Mateโs subscribers that includes an alcoholic English professor, a macho forest ranger, a lonely homicide detective, and a Vietnam vet who may be hiding a secret behind his medals.
Lassiter resists being appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the case. โI always have doubts. I see a glimmer of humanity underneath the mask of evil. I see reasons and causes and justifications. I feel pity.โ
But Lassiter takes the job, enlisting the aid of a brilliant female psychiatrist with a dark secret in her past. Sexual mysteries abound, and no one is quite what he or she seems, as Lassiter wanders through a maze of lies and corruption in order to uncover the murderer.
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