Twisted

FBI profiler Ulysses Grove's escape to a peaceful rural retreat is shattered by a new case that thrusts him back into the harrowing world of serial killers--and a fight against evil that will take him to the edge of sanity and into the very eye of mortal danger. . .

Twisted

In the heart of New Orleans, a serial killer is at work. While the city struggles to rebuild, he seeks only to destroy. His victims are offerings, surrounded by objects as mysterious as the French Quarter itself. For Special Agent Ulysses Grove the case is personal. The latest victim, a respected Tulane professor, was also a dear friend whose death holds startling clues to this madness. As Grove and journalist Maura County pore through cold cases and the dead man's half-destroyed notes, a terrifying truth begins to unfold: a Mayan expedition gone wrong, an ancient civilization, ritual human sacrifices, and a serial killer who has tapped the secrets of indestructible power.

Now, as a storm season threatens the Gulf Coast, Grove is on the hunt for a twisted psychopath with a deep connection to his own past--one who sees Grove as the ultimate trophy. . .

Publishing a novel about a giant hurricane hitting New Orleans eleven months after the very real Hurricane Katrina is a dicey undertaking. But Bonansinga pulls it off with grace and reverence for the Crescent City—especially since, according to the novel's foreword, he turned in the first draft one month before Katrina hit. The chills don't stop with the novel's prescience. In his second leading role, stoic ex-FBI profiler Ulysses Grove comes to post-Katrina New Orleans for the funeral of a friend, professor Moses De Lourde, but finds a string of related murders—De Lourde's included—that compel him and former flame Maura County, a journalist, to team up and find the killer. After the pair do further research into De Lourde's secret theory tying hurricanes to ancient ritual human sacrifice, clues to the killer's identity emerge, and the case turns up links to Grove's past. As the city battens down for another disastrous storm season, Grove's chase is just beginning. Those who haven't read the previous Grove novel might find themselves playing catchup, but Bonansinga has a talent for painting suspenseful scenes in vivid colors, put to especially good use in the final showdown. (July)
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