The Assailant
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
CO-ED SLAIN. That's the call that brings St. Louis Police Lieutenant George Hastings to the downtown banks of the Mississippi River, where Reesa Woods has been strangled and dumped. The hard-charging Hastings is no stranger to murder, but he's stuck without any leads until a second body—also strangled—turns up across town and he knows he's chasing a monster.
A talented doctor with an otherwise ordinary and enviable life, Raymond Sheffield has some very dark needs. His first victims are targets of opportunity, but his ambitions go far beyond that. He's formed a taste for killing, and his only interest is in getting better at it.
As the violence mounts, the line between upstanding citizens and their secret desires gets thinner and thinner in this thrilling game of catch-me-if-you-can from acclaimed crime novelist James Patrick Hunt.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Colorless characters and a recycled plot line undercut Hunt's third procedural to feature Lt. George Hastings of the St. Louis police (after 2008's Goodbye Sister Disco). Assigned to look into the strangulation of a prostitute, Hastings doesn't get far on the case before a second hooker turns up dead. Those expecting a whodunit may be dismayed to learn about a quarter of the way into the story that the killer is a local surgeon, Raymond Sheffield. Eager to be recognized for his crimes, if only under the moniker "Springheel Jim," Sheffield calls journalist Cliff Llewellyn to tip Llewellyn off that the two slayings are linked, that there's now a third victim and that a public library book on Jack the Ripper contains a vital clue. Hastings is a competent enough investigator, but the reader has little basis to believe that without Sheffield's revealing phone call Hastings would ever catch the killer.
