Jonathan Stride is a detective for the Duluth police department. Stride is married to Serena, who is also a cop, and they have a foster daughter named Cat. Stride has solved many cases, including one of worst, involving women who were kidnapped and kept in cages. While he did save one, Lori, but three other women died, and the killer left a chilling message to Stride: "better luck next time."

Time passes, and a movie is being made of Stride's life. Stride reluctantly goes along with the movie and is fearful of reliving the events of discovering Lori's captivity. Filming begins in Duluth, but soon dead bodies start showing up around town. Are these murders connected to each other, or two Stride's movie?

One of the victims turns out to be a private investigator named Peach Piper, who was in town spying on the big Hollywood actor playing Stride in the movie, but no one knows why. After much investigating, it seems that everything is leading back to the actors... The movie seems to be causing a lot of problems for everyone.

This is the first novel I have read by Brian Freeman, and now I must go out and find the other books in the Jonathan Stride series. I loved ALTER EGO. Freeman had me guessing as to who was the real killer. Have to say I was shocked. I thought I had this book figured out, but I was completely wrong on who I thought it was!

I really liked all of the characters in this book. One of my favorites was Maggie, a tough little cop who really didn't know what she wanted. This is another reason why I have to find more of Freeman's books. So if you really love murder mysteries, get ALTER EGO and see how long it takes you to figure out who done it...