Maddy Sheridan Parker is back at the Journal as an investigative reporter after a leave of absence and had found the work mundane. She misses the chase of the crime, hunting serial killers, psychopaths-the more messed up the better. Maddy receives a phone call from her husband, Jackson Parker, Chief of Detectives at the SCPD asking her to give her opinion on a crime scene. Since resigning from her job as an FBI profiler she has taken on a contract position with the SCPD as an Offender Profiler and a Crime Scene Analyst. With excitement coursing through her veins, Maddy can't get to the sight fast enough. When she finds is a young boy hanging from a light fixture, she is disappointed to find it was only an accidental suicide. Later they find out the boy had been sexually abused. Even though this was not the type of case Maddy was hired to work, Jack is determined to find the monster that drove this child to suicide and pushes Maddy to work with him but she refuses. It isn't until a gruesome murder is discovered on the Westside that Maddy is pulled in on a case. The crime scene and victim reek of sexual homicide...up close and personal. Maddy is confused because the killer is both organized and disorganized and does not fit into one dichotomy...puzzling indeed. When an apparent home invasion happens two days later, Maddy knows it's not a simple invasion. This elderly couple were targets. Even though she finds the method of the kill of the elderly woman quite torturous but organized, she has to admire the imagination of the killer. There was nothing creative about killing the male-messy and disorganized. Maddy believes the murders are all connected and are being committed by a killing team. While trying to find a connection, Maddy finds her perps are victims, her victims are perps and the killing team is doing what the law could not, bring them to justice. The deeper Maddy digs, the more personal the case becomes drawing her nearer to already blurred lines. Maddy is joined in the case by her husband, Jack and two former FBI agents, Bryan Mayland and Andy Whittmer, otherwise known around the precinct as the Feeb Squad.
About the Author: Author Mari L. Bauer has published two other novels in the Maddy Sheridan series, both crime thrillers. Her first novel, Small Sacrifices, was published in January of 2011, and her second novel, My Game, My Rules was released in August of 2011. Ms. Bauer is a resident of Holstein, Iowa where she has owned and operated the local newspaper, The Advance, for the past twenty years. She has attended numerous classes in forensics, criminology, police procedure and abnormal psychology to give her writing authenticity. Her books and story lines are based on information she has learned from classes she has taken and hundreds of hours of research.