F2f (Ome) - Softcover

Finch Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0752803751 ISBN 13: 9780752803753

Publisher: Orion Publishing Co, 1996

Synopsis

A terrifying tale of random violence--all the more compelling because it could come true. When a murder threat appears on a San Francisco computer bulletin board, most users of the system consider it an ugly prank. But when one user tries to argue with the message's author, codenamed "Snowflake", she is shaken by the warning "You have been noticed".

About this title

From the Publisher

Would you invite a serial killer into your home?

If you have a computer and a modem, you may have already opened the door....

The Verba Interchange is an electronic bulletin board, a virtual meeting placewhere anyone with a computer and a modem can exchange views, flirt, or arguewith complete anonymity. But an ingenious serial killer is using the vastpotential of the Net to choose victims for a deadly f2f--a face-to-facemeeting.

"Your life is in jeopardy. As you read this, you are within reach of amurderer. Death stands behind you, silent and unseen. At any moment you mayfeel its chill breath on the back of your neck... "

So begins a macabre message posted on Verba, under the innocent-sounding aliasSnowflake. Most of its readers assume the threat is a bizarre joke; a fewreply, their responses ranging from disgust to insult, from attempts to reasonto outright challenge. To each he sends a warning: "You have been noticed."

Filmmaker Kate Lavin is one of the Verba subscribers who have attractedSnowflake's attention. She is disturbed by his warning, but with the passingweeks her concerns are pushed aside by work and her worries about herex-husband, computer genius Ellis Hoile. They have maintained a bittersweetfriendship, but now Ellis is consumed in a new project that makes use of hisquirky brilliance...and that makes Kate uneasy.

Then the first body appears, with a cryptic message to taunt investigators.Shortly after, another Verba subscriber dies. The police have no clues--anddon't even yet know what connects the victims. It will take a mind asbrilliant as the killer's, with as bold a disregard for convention and the law,to crack the warped code of a murderer's logic... before the rest of the nameson his list--including Kate's,--become names on homicide case files.

F2F is a taut and terrifying tale of random violence--all the more compellingbecause it could be true.

Copyright 1996 by Phillip Finch.

About the Author

Phillip Finch is the author of four previous novels, including Sugarland, which The New York Times hailed as one of the best thrillers of 1991.

Edition details

• Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0752803751
• ISBN 13: 9780752803753
• Binding: Paperback