Thomas Perry's
Pursuit is a dark tale of two killers, one a cold- blooded hit man and the other, the hero, something much murkier. When 13 people are mowed down in a restaurant, a police consultant realizes that it's the work of a professional who's tried to make a contract hit look like a random mass killing. Enter Roy Prescott, an expert in hunting down criminals using methods generally frowned on by law enforcement. Prescott uses the national media and the unknown killer's ego to draw his attention, then plays a game of cat-and- mouse with him in which the stakes quickly grow higher. Perry, best-known for his fine Jane Whitefield series, has a precise feel for characters who work for vengeance and justice outside the law, and Prescott easily gains the reader's sympathy while maintaining his bad-guy, good-guy mystique.
Pursuit may draw some comparisons with Lawrence Block's wry Hit Man and Hit List, but while Block is always excellent, it's Perry's work that'll have you waking up in a cold sweat. --Barrie Trinkle
"BRILLIANT . . . A BONA FIDE NAIL-BITER . . . Thomas Perry's cerebral thrillers unfold methodically, in extremely sharp focus. His attention to detail is so intense that it generates its own brand of quiet suspense."
"-The New York Times
Roy Prescott is all alone in the world, living lies, making plans, meticulously going about his job. Prescott's job is to hunt people down . . . and then to kill them. Now he has been hired to find a monster-a man who is as alone as he is, as smart, as methodical, as deadly, and even more arrogant. Prescott knows that to find this monster he must get inside his head, get him angry, and force him to come after him. Soon he gets his wish. With a little luck, the killer even makes a mistake-trying to prove a point to Prescott. But Prescott needs no proof. He already knows what he's up against. He knows that innocent people are going to die. The only question now is which one of them will get the first shot-which one will get the last. . . .
"From the Paperback edition.