Deviant Ways »

Chris Mooney is the critically acclaimed author of Deviant Ways,

World Without End, and Remembering Sarah, which was nominated for

the Barry Award and the Edgar Award for Best Novel. He lives in Boston with his

wife and son. For more information, visit www.chrismooneybooks.com.

Punctuated with one blisteringly violent and unpredictable twist after another, this pitch-perfect study of psychological terror spotlights two magnificent minds opposed in a no-holds-barred duel of cunning and depravity.

A master killer calling himself the Sandman is out for revenge. He's slaughtering not just one person at a time but whole families and whole neighborhoods, unleashing devastating explosions nationwide, and watching the horror unfold on a sophisticated network of surveillance cameras. No one knows why he is committing his crimes, or where he'll strike next.

But one man -- Jack Casey -- knows this: the Sandman wants him in the middle of the case, and wants him to suffer....

Jack was the FBI's top profiler until a psychopath's unspeakable crime shattered his life. Now Jack is starting over as a detective in a posh shoreline community outside Boston, and dating a beautiful woman who knows nothing about his shocking past. But the Sandman has found him, and his cutting-edge electronic devices are silently monitoring Jack's every move. Knowing that a showdown is imminent, Jack turns in desperation to Malcolm Fletcher -- a strange and brilliant fallen angel from the profiling unit. Fletcher is wanted by the FBI. And he possesses the key to unlocking the Sandman's demented mind.

As Jack Casey confronts evidence that the evil he's fighting may have emanated from his own side of the law, the Sandman's motivations begin to appear and a wild chase ensues. But while racing against time to save the next family, Jack is led deeper into the dark and terrifying tunnels of his fragile mind-a place where the Sandman awaits, to deal his final master stroke of vindictive cruelty.

Deviant Ways is a breathtaking and unforgettable first novel that catapults Chris Mooney into suspense fiction's highest ranks. A harrowing journey through ordinary streets turned into scenes of unimaginable terror, it careens from cries of mass murder to whispers within the mind-in a disturbing cat-and-mouse game of righteousness, loss, and vengeance.

Publishers Weekly

The familiar device of revenge killing is given horrific new twists in this gripping debut, as Mooney propels the reader into breathless suspense. The action kicks off with a literal bang: it's July 4 in Marblehead, Mass., where a serial killer, determined to erase evidence of a multiple slaying, sets off a bomb that wipes out several homes. Called in to investigate is Jack Casey, a former hotshot FBI profiler who's attempting to mend his shattered life as a detective on the Marblehead police force. Six years earlier, he watched, bound and drugged, while a madman killed his wife and unborn child. As the house bombings continue, Jack's assignment begins to undermine his sanity; recollections of the past crowd upon him, and his increasingly fragile condition threatens a current romantic relationship. Along the way Casey joins forces with the dark and fascinating Malcolm Fletcher, a renegade from the profiling department given to quoting Oscar Wilde, reading Le Morte d'Arthur in French and delivering the odd wisecrack ("I've seen your efforts. A high school freshman trying to unclasp a bra has a more polished approach"). Fascinating, too, is the novel's villain, the self-proclaimed Sandman, whose fiendish use of up-to-the-minute technology, for both surveillance and destruction, lends the novel some of its most distinctive details. Mooney's cinematic eye, unerring ear for vivid dialogue and deft touches of humanity--often interjected in moving counterpoint to the plot's malevolence--combine to turn this novel, despite some genre clich s (e.g., the traumatized cop), into a rousing read. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.