Synopsis
A serial killer has struck again. FBI Special Agent Victoria Santos is tracking the string of gruesome murders from New York to San Francisco, from Miami to Oregon. Her only lead: the distinct savagery of the slayings, "signed" with the killer's own brand of barbarism.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Miami Tribune reporter Mike Posten has covered thousands of horrible crimes in his rough-and-tumble career. But nothing has prepared him for an anonymous call from a mysterious stranger who claims his mind works so much like the killer's that he can actually predict the next attack - time, place, victim. The only catch is, the man wants money. A lot of it.
It could be the scoop of Mike's career - or the end of it. Haunted by a failing marriage and a back-stabbing rival in the Tribune newsroom, Mike isn't sure if the caller is the killer or the evil genius he claims to be, and he wonders which would be worse. He has never paid for a story, and he doesn't intend to start now - unless it could help stop a killer. When the caller's grisly "predictions" prove true, Mike secretly contacts the FBI, and Victoria targets his informant as the breakthrough she's been waiting for. At once a strange alliance and a classic struggle between the FBI and the press, Mike and Victoria form the front line of attack, with Mike as the go-between for the informant and the feds: "checkbook journalism," at its deadliest.
As FBI top brass become convinced that the informant is the killer, Mike and Victoria search for the elusive element that links the victims to a true psychopath. Soon their own lives are in danger, and they come face-to-face with the reason he kills without a conscience - and why it may be impossible to stop him.
Reviews
The title character of attorney Grippando's second thriller (after The Pardon) is the anonymous man who contacts Miami Tribune reporter Mike Posten and claims that he can predict the next victim of a serial killer who has eluded the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit. The informant wants to be paid in cash for what he says he knows. After a brief debate, Posten and his paper pony up for a series of exclusives. Posten also talks to the FBI, in the form of agent Victoria Santos, who is alone in believing that the informant and the killer are different people. It's an unusually cerebral and low-key beginning to a serial-killer thriller, emphasizing procedure, forensics and professional ethics rather than shock or even suspense; the killings that occur during this set-up take place off page. Soon enough, however, the informer/killer question is resolved and Grippando moves his story into more familiar territory, telling an absorbing tale with cool competence. The murders are given a plausible motive and the climax, which takes place on a hijacked cruise ship, surges with tension; even Posten's marital problems are tied neatly to the plot line. Former FBI agent and veteran serial-killer-stalker John Douglas (Mind Hunter) has blurbed this novel as authentic and "thoroughly convincing"; true?and it's a nail-biter to boot. $60,000 ad/promo; simultaneous HarperAudio release.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Grippando grabs for the brass ring in his second galloping Napoleon-of-crime fantasy (The Pardon, 1994)--and brings it about halfway home. Somebody's decided to start selling Mike Posten, a Pulitzer alumnus at the Miami Tribune, the hottest crime tips of the decade: sending him the names of each new target of a cunning killer who's cutting out his victims' tongues--and sending them after they're already dead but before the bodies are discovered. It's the killer himself, insist the FBI when Mike asks if they'll bankroll his stories. But task force coordinator Victoria Santos doesn't think so, and like Mike, she sticks her neck way, way out in support of her theory that the killer's being dogged by a second man, an informant who knows his modus operandi so well that he can predict what he'll do next. Bucking the reservations the Tribune--and the FBI--have about spending big bucks for tips that may be coming straight from the killer and financing his getaway, Mike and Victoria work to piece together profiles of both the men they think they're looking for, even though the killer's profile, which combines hallmarks of both organized and disorganized serial killers, leaves them wondering if he might be a schizoid tattling on himself after all. So far, so edgy--until Grippando, halfway through, lifts the veil to expose the identities of both killer and informant, the relationship between them, and the motive for the ghoulish crimes, and the story turns into a cat-and-mouse game with a cat who's a lot less scary (and convincing) once he's been explained away, and a new series of threats (breaking up Mike's fragile family for good, taking an ocean liner hostage) that scream TV movie. Even the flatter second half, once Grippando's shown all his cards, is enough to keep you tearing through the pages--but now you already know what you're going to find. ($60,000 ad/promo) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Grippando's (The Pardon, LJ 8/94) second novel is a taut page-turner with class, reminiscent of the work of Michael Connelly (The Concrete Blond, Little, Brown, 1994) and Patricia Cornwell (Cause of Death, LJ 3/1/96). A diabolical serial killer is traversing the country slicing out the tongues of his seemingly random victims. In a stunning twist on the otherwise tired serial killer theme, reporter Mike Posten of the Miami Tribune is contacted by a man claiming to know the killer's patterns intimately. As the "informant" extorts more and more outrageous sums for his uncannily accurate predictions, Posten and FBI agent Victoria Santos forge an uneasy alliance. While FBI brass are convinced that they are dealing with one man, Victoria remains loyal to her gut instincts. Ultimately, she must acquiesce to using Mike as a lure in a stand-off with the killer aboard a cruise ship. Public libraries will want several copies of this potential best seller.
-?Susan A. Zappia, Maricopa Cty. Lib. Dist., Phoenix
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
There's a serial killer out there, but the locations are disparate and the victims seemingly unconnected. FBI agent Victoria Santos has developed a psychological profile of the killer, whose attention to detail results in a dearth of clues. Then Miami Tribune reporter Mike Posten receives calls from someone who claims he's not the killer, but he thinks so much like him he can predict the killer's next move. The caller will talk for cash, which the FBI supplies. The finale takes place on a cruise ship and pits the killer against Santos and Posten. HarperCollins is investing big money to convince readers that this is another Silence of the Lambs, but it's not even close. At best, it's a run-of-the-mill thriller populated from Central Casting: the plucky FBI agent, the intrepid reporter, and the killer with a dysfunctional childhood. Still, the author's previous thriller, The Pardon (1994), did well, and the publicity blitz will generate some demand. Buy cautiously. Wes Lukowsky
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