Next Victim

November 18, 2002
To any thriller fan who didn't sleep through the 1990s, the protagonists of Prescott's fifth novel (following Last Breath) will seem comfortingly familiar: the heroine is a blonde, gray-eyed single (and single-minded) FBI agent; the villain is a crafty, complex and completely insane serial killer. Unlike cannibal Hannibal, however, the mysterious Mobius is not a unique monster; he's terrifying precisely because he's so ordinary, an everyman who could be just about anyone... or anywhere. And unlike cool Clarisse, Tess McCallum's career and psyche have both been frozen since the night she arrived at her "secure" home to find her fellow FBI agent, and supposedly secret lover, ritually murdered by the slippery sex-killer she had been pursuing. Now, two deceptively quiet years later, Mobius is back, with a new identity and a new weapon that enables him to morph from mere serial killer to mass murderer—unless Tess can find the elusive madman before he kills her, along with much of Los Angeles. Unrelentingly suspenseful, this psychological chiller is only for those with a high terror threshold. (Dec. 3)Forecast:Prescott is launching his latest with an initiative called "Project Big-Time," in which he urges readers via his Web site to rush out and buy his book within the first two weeks of its publication. Though "Project Big-Time" may spur initial sales, the quality of the storytelling, combined with the book's striking cover—featuring inside cover quotes from Jeffery Deaver and Bentley Little—will ensure that this one holds its own against the competition.