Mortal Fear »

Greg Iles gained notice for his smart, what-if storylines based on World War II scenarios; but when he turned to his own territory to write suspenseful, modern crime stories set in the American South, that's when readers really sat up and took notice.

May 1997

Greg Iles is perfectly suited for an online interview. His new book, Mortal Fear, crosses into a new cyber-genre of fiction, the "online thriller." The third book from this Mississippi-based author, known for his previous novels Spandau Phoenix and the bestselling Black Cross, Mortal Fear flirts tantalizingly with the notion of anonymous virtual sex on the Internet -- and creates a very real serial killer born out of the taboo discussion.

Harper Cole has a day job, like most others in his Mississippi town, trading commodities out of his farmhouse on the isolated Delta. But at night, his occupation drastically changes, as Harper becomes systems operator for Eros, a highly exclusive, sexually explicit online service whose clients range from the Hollywood jet set to the New York literati, and all the incognito eroticists in between. Shielded by a guarantee of absolute anonymity, these clients pour their secrets into a digital confession box, accessible only by the top brass of Eros operators like Harper Cole.

But when six female participants mysteriously "log off" -- disappear from the network altogether -- and a famous New Orleans author and Eros client is horribly murdered in her home, Harper Cole is faced with a policy-breaching decision. He breaks the sacred code of silence, notifies the police, and suddenly finds himself the FBI's prime suspect for murder. He must place everything he holds dear in the killer's path in hopes of clearing his own name and ending the vicious cycle of cyber-spawned slayings. With the advent of Internet anonymity, this virtual Southern thriller stirs a very real uneasiness.

Publishers Weekly

Yet another serial killer stalks the Internet, this one courtesy of the talented Iles (Black Cross; Spandau Phoenix). When futures trader Harper Cole, who moonlights as the systems operator of an erotic online services called EROS, contacts the New Orleans police with information about the murder of celebrated author-and EROS subscriber-Karin Wheat, he immediately becomes the prime suspect in six other murders of EROS subscribers across the country. Also on the FBI's short list is Cole's eccentric friend and EROS colleague Miles Turner, who has dubbed the killer "Brahma." When Cole learns that the man he thought was Brahma was killed a year ago and that his online identity was stolen, a tense cat-and-mouse game commences. Professional hunters, like FBI psychiatric profiler Arthur Lenz, have the online tables turned on them time and again by an insanely brilliant murderer, and it's up to Cole to render justice. His digging leads to an exciting payoff when he goes online and poses as a potential victim, using as bait a secret that endangers the mother of his child, as well as his wife. While Cole's obsession over this guilty secret makes him less than likable at times, a nailbiting climax erases any doubts about his character-and any lingering questioning about the storytelling abilities of Iles, who here uses rich first-person narration and clever plotting to tell a sizzler of a thriller. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection; simultaneous Penguin Audio Book. (Feb.)