Good Morning, Killer - Hardcover

Smith, April

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375412409 ISBN 13: 9780375412400

Publisher: Knopf, 2003

Synopsis

An electrifying new thriller that brings back the complex, strong-willed, often-maverick FBI agent—Ana Grey—whom we first met in the author’s stunning debut novel, North of Montana.

This time Special Agent Grey is working on a kidnapping case—a fifteen-year-old named Juliana has been abducted in Santa Monica. Grey’s counterpart in the Santa Monica Police Department is Detective Andrew Berringer. They’ve worked together before—and they’ve been more than just working together ever since.

It’s Ana’s job “to know the victim as if she were my own flesh and blood.” But when Juliana turns up—traumatized into a state of total and paralyzing terror—it becomes clear that Ana has gone too far: she is viewing her own life from the perspective of Juliana’s blasted emotional terrain. And in a moment of passion (Andrew has betrayed her) and panic (is it possible that he also means to harm her?) Ana points a gun at him and shoots.

Now she is both criminal investigator and criminal as she breaks her bail agreement to continue tracking the abductor, torn between her powerful emotional connection with Juliana and the fraying connection she has to her own common sense and to the truths she knows about Andrew—and about herself.

Psychologically acute and unstoppably suspenseful—Good Morning, Killer is a searing, addictive read.

About this title

About the Author

April Smith is the author of North of Montana and Be the One. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.

From the Inside Flap

ing new thriller that brings back the complex, strong-willed, often-maverick FBI agent―Ana Grey―whom we first met in the author’s stunning debut novel, <b>North of Montana</b>.<br><br>This time Special Agent Grey is working on a kidnapping case―a fifteen-year-old named Juliana has been abducted in Santa Monica. Grey’s counterpart in the Santa Monica Police Department is Detective Andrew Berringer. They’ve worked together before―and they’ve been more than just working together ever since.<br><br>It’s Ana’s job “to know the victim as if she were my own flesh and blood.” But when Juliana turns up―traumatized into a state of total and paralyzing terror―it becomes clear that Ana has gone too far: she is viewing her own life from the perspective of Juliana’s blasted emotional terrain. And in a moment of passion (Andrew has betrayed her) and panic (is it possible that he also means to harm her?) Ana po

Reviews

Intelligent and uncompromising, this second in a series by Smith reprises the successes of her acclaimed first thriller, North of Montana. Feisty, unconventional FBI Special Agent Ana Grey is teamed with tough but compassionate Police Det. Andrew Berringer on a kidnapping case involving Santa Monica teen Juliana Meyer-Murphy. Grey and Berringer continue the tempestuous personal relationship begun in Smith's first novel: "That's how we met. Working the same bank robbery, dubbed `Mission Impossible' because the bandit came in through the roof. We don't always catch the bad guys, but we're great with the nicknames." After Juliana is released alive but physically and psychologically devastated, the case becomes personal for Ana. Learning the harrowing particulars of Juliana's ordeal and observing the well-meaning but brutally invasive examinations the girl must undergo-described in clinical detail-she grows more and more obsessed with the demented killer/rapist, a charismatic ex-marine. As the chase intensifies, so does Ana's troubled relationship with Andrew. An argument that escalates into physical confrontation changes the lives of both when Ana pulls a gun and fires. While Ana is still in the middle of the fallout, the kidnapping case ends in a Silence of the Lambs-style standoff at the killer's private gallery of horrors. Smith's finely calibrated, unsentimental writing and tart humor make her a standout in the genre. She doesn't just tell a story; she illuminates the human condition through the pain and complex lives-and deaths-of her compelling characters.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ten years ago, Smith's debut thriller starring iconoclastic FBI agent Ana Grey, North of Montana, earned raves from a range of critics and writers, including Robert B. Parker, Scott Turow, and James Ellroy. Now, after a considerable hiatus, Grey is back, still a maverick FBI agent. This time, though, her credentials as a free spirit seem to hinge mainly on her willingness to rendezvous with her street-cop lover whenever he pages her for sexual trysts that get old fast. When not trysting, Grey and lover, Detective Andrew Berringer, are working on the same case, which involves the kidnapping of a teenage girl from her Santa Monica home. (The FBI is called in as part of the "new politics" of response to diverse communities, especially, as Grey sardonically observes, to the wealthier communities.) The girl from the seemingly perfect home is found to have brittle, bizarre parents, as well as friends who use her as a gopher for drugs. Grey's tough exterior breaks when the girl is returned, raped and brutalized, and a series of brutal rapes follows. Although Smith is good on procedure, her heroine sounds inappropriately gee-whizzy at times, and the plot is not without its creaks. North to Montana created lots of Ana Grey fans, and most of them will want to see what she's up to here. Unfortunately, they may be disappointed. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Part One
Proof of Life

It was winter and I was swimming laps in the rain.

I have found it a privilege to swim outside in the rain, a perk you get in return for living in Los Angeles that not many appreciate. You have to like being extremely wet, and enjoy the feeling of smug superiority because the canyon air is forty degrees and you're in a relatively warm bath. You have to appreciate the subtle play of vanished circles on the water and the dance of droplets off your goggles, blurring the shapes of redtail hawks resting on a telephone pole and deer moving close to the houses.

I did not know about the girl.

I was doing the backstroke, looking up at the clouds, trying not to get pushed into the lane lines by the county lifeguard who was working out beside me, with the tapered legs and the chest of a manatee. He was gray-haired, with a stroke so smooth it never seemed to break water, as if propelled by some internal muscular power known only to yogis. In fact the lifeguard was a kind of spiritual seeker and would speak of "the breath" as if it were a living thing.

My personal meditation that day was on a briefing with the senior superintendent from the Hong Kong Police Force. It would be a lunch with twenty other folks, a long ungainly table in Distefano's, everyone trying to look spiffy and smart--a total waste of time when I had to get my files in order for an upcoming ninety-day file review, an assessment of open cases as pleasant as a cross between a migraine headache and spring cleaning. When you work the kidnap squad you find a lot of cases--mostly missing children--stay open forever.

When the red hand on the workout clock brushed 6:55 a.m., I hauled out of the water and hightailed across the frigid pool deck, raindrops popping off my silicone cap. Checking the pager hooked inside the swim bag, I found it was blinking: Code 3-PCH-AB.

Emergency.

I stood alone in the freezing cinder-block locker room, dripping freely and staring at the numbers with a secret smile. It was a message in police code from "AB" (Detective Andrew Berringer), which usually meant not a life-and-death emergency but an emergency of the gonads, which I could feel responding as I peeled off the cold clinging bathing suit and headed for the open shower.

The two other women who had been swimming in the rain (both lawyers) came hurrying in, shivery and goose-bumped, absorbed in chatter about book clubs, children, different types of olives, someone's half-demolished kitchen, as a wild mix of botanicals--mint, eucalyptus, citrus, rose--swirled in the steamy vapor and they lathered unabashedly and shaved and loofahed, while I stood under the hot pounding spray with head bowed in thanks because of this sudden unexpected gift of seeing Andrew, even more delicious if it were to take place, let's say, behind the locked rest room door in Back on the Beach, a café down on Pacific Coast Highway.

Where, I thought, the emergency was.

Good thing I had those ten extra minutes.

In the parking lot of the YMCA facility I passed the lifeguard, who carried nothing but a small satchel while my shoulder was crippled under the weight of a swim bag loaded with fins, towels, hair dryer and an enormous makeup kit. I was wearing a slim black pants suit and heels because of the luncheon with the superintendent from Hong Kong. The lifeguard wore nothing but a T-shirt and shorts.

"Come under my umbrella."

He shook his head. "How'd you like your workout, Miss FBI-FYI?"

"Good."

"Make sure you get enough air." He inflated his lungs. "Air," he said.

"Air," I agreed, and got into my car to the silent buzz of the Nextel cell phone on my belt.

"Ana?" It was my supervisor, Rick Harding. "Where have you been?"

Lost in an erotic delirium, I had forgotten to check the Nextel also. Two missed messages.

"Underwater. Sorry."

"Tell me about it, the freeway was flooded, took an hour and a half to get in. We've got a kidnapping on the Westside. The police department requested our assistance. You're next up."

Next in line to be case agent. The senior in charge.

So much for ten minutes in heaven.

"What's the deal?"

"The victim is a fifteen-year-old female missing since yesterday. I'm going to the police department. The techs are on their way to the family residence."

He gave me an address on Twenty-second Street, north of Montana Avenue, the Gillette Regent Square section of trendy Santa Monica. Kind of like the tenderloin of the filet mignon.

"Is that why we're all over this?" I asked. "High-profile neighborhood?"

"It's the 'new politics,'" he replied, which meant yes.

"We're sure about the kidnap? It's not just a runaway?"

"Mom and Dad got a call early this morning."

"Ransom?"

"The girl was pleading for her life. Then they hung up."

"Works for me."

"Just get over there."

I barreled down Temescal and took a quick detour south on PCH, swinging through a puddle at the entrance to Back on the Beach. The muddy water rooster-tailed up about ten feet, completely obscuring my windshield.

Andrew was not there to witness this dramatic arrival. His burgundy unmarked Ford was parked facing the ocean, empty, doors locked. The restaurant hadn't opened yet. Patio tables were glassy and jumping with rain, and I knew if I took one step onto the bike path my black heels would instantly become stained with saturated sand. So I waited on the asphalt under the umbrella while impertinent gusts blew at my knees and under my arms, wishing I had taken the time to blow-dry my hair, which had become uncomfortably damp in the sideways mist. I began to sneeze, that smug superiority cooling down fast, as a yellow county rescue truck, red lights pulsing, came north across the beach.

Where the hell was he?

Against the unsettled ocean and the bluster of the blue-white sky, I watched as the heavy truck pitched stubbornly over rises in the sand. Its slow progress seemed to make a statement about law enforcement: We shall override.

A pitiful thing to take for comfort.

The truck stopped past the restaurant, just out of my sight. I could hear the deep idle of the engine and feedback on a police scanner. I stepped onto the bike path. A hundred yards away I could see Detective Berringer in his trademark black motorcycle jacket, kneeling beside a bicyclist wearing bright regalia who had skidded out.

"Andrew!"

He waved me back, yakking it up with some lifeguards in fluorescent rain gear who were bringing out a spine board. Claps on the back, handshakes, long-lost pals. Now the wind was wrapping around my legs, and I could look forward to clammy panty hose the rest of the day.

Finally, he jogged over, brushing off his hands.

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting for you. Hi, doll," giving me a smooch. "See that paramedic? The tall, skinny guy? That's Hank Harris!" he said wonderingly.

"You know him?"

"I know his dad!" Andrew shook his head. "When you turn fifty, things get weird. That kid's supposed to be eight years old, playing Little League!"

"You're not fifty."

I never knew anyone to add to his age, but Andrew was several years ahead of himself in an apprehension he had about "getting old," which was ridiculous. He was adorable. Not perfect-looking (nose like a stumpy old carrot, not the tightest chin), but a rough-hewn charisma you would definitely pick out at a bar--dark wavy hair cut short and greenish eyes that could bully or tease; a face that could be a mask of detachment, then open up like a kid who just hit a home run. I believe this was the reason--an extraordinary ease with his own emotions--that Andrew was often picked by the department for public relations gigs. He was a seasoned street detective who apparently was not afraid to show what he felt. Therefore he would not likely be afraid of the deeply awful things that had happened to you. When Andrew gave workshops on bank security the female tellers would write down their phone numbers on deposit slips. He would call them back was my understanding.

That's how we met. Working the same bank robbery, dubbed "Mission Impossible" because the bandit came in through the roof. We don't always catch the bad guys, but we're great with the nicknames.

Andrew took the umbrella. I put my arm around his waist even though his jacket was cold and slick. We were walking as fast as possible, an inelegant pair, since I am five four and he was six one, outweighing me by a hundred pounds. He was built like a football player and cared about it. He owned a bench and read weight-lifting magazines.

"So what happened?" I asked of the bike wreck.

"I don't know why assholes go out in this weather."

"Because they're--"

"--The sand is all soggy, look at this, like riding in peanut butter."

The wind picked up. We ran for it.

"Come into my office." Unlocking his car. "Normally we don't let Feds in here. But I have something special for you."

"I have to go."

"So do I."

But we paused, very close, under the umbrella.

"I'm crazy about you, you know that," he said.

"Yeah, well, you drive me crazy. Is that the same thing?"

The rain drummed on our makeshift roof. In the frank light our faces were eager, ruddy, his high round cheeks shining like a choirboy's. In those days it lifted me to be with him. It just lifted me, like a kite off the ground that wants to return to the same spot in the sky.

His eyes half closed and I rose up and he leaned down to kiss me and we did and...

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375412409
• ISBN 13: 9780375412400
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368