When an unidentified female body is discovered laid out on a slab in an abandoned butcher's shop, the cause of death is unclear. Her body bares no marks; except for the fact that her lips have been carefully stitched shut.
It is only when the full autopsy gets underway at the Los Angeles County morgue that the pathologist will reveal the true horror of the situation - a discovery so devastating that Detective Robert Hunter of the Los Angeles Homicide Special Section has to be pulled off a different case to take over the investigation.
But when his inquiry collides with a missing persons' case being investigated by the razor-sharp Whitney Meyers, Hunter suspects the killer might be keeping several women hostage. Soon Robert finds himself on the hunt for a murderer with a warped obsession, a stalker for whom love has become hate.
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Doctor Jonathan Winston pulled the surgical mask over his mouth and nose and checked the clock on the wall of autopsy room number four on the underground floor of the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner. ONE
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(@simonschusterUK, 18 August 2011, 464 pages, ebook, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs)
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I've decided to read the author's back catalogue after I read and loved his book Written in Blood when I took part in the blog tour recently. I still have no idea why I hadn't stumbled across the author before. To be clear, this book has nothing to do with Richard Ramirez. In case you wondered. It's one of the best thrillers I've read in a long time, if a little gory. If you don't like violence and gore, step away now. This isn't the book for you. Hunter is tracking a killer unlike any he's come across before and in his line of work, he's met a lot. Three women are found dead with their mouths and vaginas sewn shut, women who have been missing and kept alive and nourished for some time. The stitches are the only things that mark their untouched bodies. It's what's found inside each woman's sewn-up vagina that stunned me. You'll need to read the book to find out but I have a major case of the flesh crawlies. The chapters are mega short so the book is fast paced and fairly rattles along as Hunter and his team gradually find out the full horror of it all.
