Just when Alex thought his life was calming down into a routine of patients and therapy sessions, he finds himself back in the game--this time to catch a criminal mastermind like no other. A spate of elaborate murders in Washington D.C. have the whole East Coast on edge. They are like nothing Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, have ever seen. With each murder, the case becomes increasingly complex. There's only one thing Alex...

He had always wanted to be famous. When he kidnapped two well-known rich kids it was headline news. Then one of them was found--dead. For such a high-profile case, they needed Alex Cross, police psychologist, and Jezzie Flanagan, a Secret Service agent, and even they were no match for the killer.

Desiree Mitry is furious to discover that a major drug cartel has been operating in Dorset, Connecticut, right under her nose. Matters escalate when a troubled Sour Cherry Lane resident turns up dead. Desiree pursues the case in her own way. The problem is that her way gets her in way too deep. And there's only person who can possibly get her out--New York film critic Mitch Berger.

Two killers compete with each other for who can commit the most murders. One lives in Los Angeles and specializes in dismembering his victims, the other operates in the Carolinas, his specialty being college girls. By the author of Along Came a Spider.