An amateur ballroom dancer is targeted by a serial killer in this riveting mystery by veteran John Lutz Mary Arlington only feels alive when she is dancing. The rest of her life, dominated by a violent boyfriend and a mother intent on drinking herself to death, isn't worth being awake for, but when she dances the tango her troubles disappear. She's gotten so good that her studio is taking her to the national competition in Ohio, where she will prove...

Investigating cocaine smuggling in the Florida Keys, Fred Carver stumbles on a crime far worse than drug pushing   When Henry Tiller barges into Fred Carver's office, the old man seems crazy. He tells a paranoid story about one of his neighbors on the sunny Florida Key where he makes his home-a wealthy man whom he suspects of using his yacht to run drugs. A young boy recently washed up on the beach, Tiller says, and he's certain it was murder. Carver...

ON THE TRAIL OF A BLOODY KILLER… Frank Quinn is sure he is hunting for a madman: someone who is shooting young women in the heart, defiling their bodies, leaving only the torsos to be found. Quinn, a former NYPD detective, is called into the case by an ambitious chief of police and mobilizes his team of brilliant law-enforcement misfits. But in the concrete canyons of New York, this shocking serial murder case is turning into something very different… A...

A Madman's Obsession Is A City's Nightmare He comes out when the sun goes down. He's made New York City his shooting gallery. The Night Sniper threatens to increase the body count-unless legendary homicide detective Vin Repetto is willing to engage him in a lethal game of cat and mouse. When the next victim is murdered right before Repetto's eyes, the game is set to begin. But The Night Sniper doesn't realize they're playing by Repetto's rules. ....

THE UNKNOWN SPY Officially, Thomas Laker is an employee of the NSA. His real employer, known as the Gray Outfit, is not listed-anywhere. When a Washington, D. C., insider is killed in a bomb explosion, Laker teams up with cryptographer Ava North on a desperate search for clues. The only thing certain is that another act of terrorism is imminent. Delving into the dangerous past when America was drawn into global conflict, they discover one of history's...

When a nervous husband asks him to track down his heroin addict wife, Fred Carver learns that not every client can be trusted   When he meets Bob Ghostly, it's hardly the first time that Fred Carver has been asked to find a missing spouse. But Ghostly's tale about a beautiful woman who fled for no apparent reason doesn't quite convince Carver, who presses for more detail. Finally Ghostly admits it. His wife was beautiful, intelligent, and kind, but...

When a client dies in a car explosion, Orlando detective Fred Carver learns the man may not have been who he said he was For Bert Renway, it starts out as a simple proposition: a fat bundle of money to spend a few weeks impersonating Frank Wesley, a local tycoon. But after a while Bert grows suspicious of the easy money, and seeks help in the shape of Fred Carver, an ex–Orlando policeman turned private investigator. Like Bert, Carver smells trouble,...

A bloodthirsty lake monster menaces a small town in the Ozarks   When the men find him, the boy's legs look like they were run through a wood-chipper. He's bleeding heavily and near death, but he still has strength to tell them of the monster that attacked him: a dark, massive creature that emerged from the bottom of the lake. The child dies before he can say more.   Sheriff Billy Wintone has seen too much superstition, drunkenness, and rage in...

Fred Carver investigates a series of suspicious deaths in a stately Florida retirement community   Hattie Evans, a retired schoolteacher, isn't one to fuss. When her husband drops dead of a heart attack, she does her best to move on without too many tears. After all, Jerome was seventy years old. But an anonymous note, asserting that her husband was murdered, shakes her resolve, and she seeks out help. The police are useless, save that they send...

Frank Quinn, the relentless detective who made his debut in John Lutz's acclaimed thriller Darker Than Night, faces his toughest--and most personal--case yet. . . An Invitation Written In Blood. . . A madman is stalking women in the city. By the time his victims are found, they've been dismembered with careful precision, their limbs stacked into a gruesome pyramid and completely cleansed of every last drop of blood. To Catch A Killer--Or Die Next....