Product Description

In this electrifying debut, the slaying of an old couple in small town America looks like one-off act of brutal retribution. But at the same time, in Minneapolis, teams of detectives scramble to stop a sickeningly inventive serial killer striking again in a city paralysed by fear. When the two separate investigations converge on an isolated catholic boarding school, decades old secrets begin to fall away. It seems an old killer has resurfaced. Yet still the killer's real identity remains dangerously out of reach ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36971 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Sunday Telegraph
'A thrilling page-turner with a nail-biting finish'

Guardian
'A fast-paced, gripping read with thrills and devilish twists'

Harlen Coben
'Outrageously suspenseful...The thriller debut of the year'

Customer Reviews

A rollicking good read
I lent this book to my mum without reading it first. She spent her journey home from holiday immersed in it and handed it right back, enthusiastically singing its praises. I read this later that same week over the course of a return train journey to London and was gripped from the first page.

The dialogue is crisp, sharp, witty and downright funny in many places. There isn't one character that can't bring banter into play, but none of it is at the expense of the story. The characters are so well drawn that you can visualise each individual with no problem. These are characters in whose lives you become rapidly enmeshed. The authors have created strong protagonists in Detective Magozzi and Sherriff Halloran that could carry a novel each, never mind eventually combining in one novel.

The female characters are also well rounded, strong characters, not the token women you sometimes find hovering round the edges of some crime fiction. Even the large list of secondary characters each have their own distinctive voices and, given the sheer number of people in this book, that's a hard task in itself.

This is a high standard debut novel, well worth the cover price. If you like detective stories set in the USA, this is the book for you. If you just like well-written, pacy novels, then this is for you too. A definite treat.

An up & coming author
From being one of Patricia Cornwall, Dennis Lehane, Harold Coburn & one of my favourite John Grisham authors avid readers I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I thoroughly enjoyed this book & the writing quality of P.J Tracy, especially for a first time novelist.

Having found how hard it was to describe this book to my own satisfaction for this review I can not imagine how mush effort, time, anger & frustration she must have put into it to get it to this high quality & excellence. I would not be lying if I stated that I think it is one of the best-written books I have read.

Below are some of my own views on it. If you have not read the book I would strongly suggest you do so & if you have read it I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

This is a book I have found myself recommending to family & friends & also telling them to watch out for it becoming a film as I can see the actors already playing the parts.

From the get go you are so engrossed in the characters & the way they live there lives in the adversity that is facing them now & in the past which we find out throughout this book. I found myself having to read more & more of this book so that I would know who the murderer was & the motive behind it. Thankfully the surprise is well worth waiting for.

It is like the first Patricia Cornwall books where you are unable to put it down as you start to wonder is it him or her. I found myself going through all the characters thinking that it was they & that was the reason.

Thankfully I am able to say that the ending justifies the beginning & that I was only saddened that I finished the book that quickly, I think that this does a book justice when you are unable to go anywhere without it or when you are thinking about the book constantly, constantly guessing who it is.

I can honestly say that I will be pre-ordering the next P.J Tracy book as soon as it becomes available & that I have saved someplace beside the other authors for this book & hopefully the many more books to come.

Fantastic debut novel
I bought this book based on the back page resume (which got me interested), and two excellent UK broadsheet recommendations listed below it... and they were spot on. This is an excellent first book from P.J. Tracy, I could hardly put it down.

Essentially it's a U.S. based murder story, however the killings are not normal. A team of PC game designers have created a new computer game involving some pretty nasty murders... however a real life killer has started to re-created them copycat style.

At first the Police struggle to achieve a breakthrough, despite being contacted by the game developers who can provide chilling details of the 'next' murder, however soon they are on a trail that even they find hard to follow.

This book may be a debut novel, but it is brilliantly written. The tention is fantastic as the Police try to track down the killer with the help of the games team, who also appear to have something to hide. The various key characters are developed superbly, and the occasional humour certainly made me chuckle.

I really enjoyed this book, from cover to cover, and possibly the best endorsement I can make is that all I've done since I finished it is to think of the actors/actresses who I think would be perfect for the film role... and I'm certain there will be a film.