The night after the fourth of July, Layton Carlson Jr., of Red Wing, Minnesota, finally got lucky. And unlucky. He'd picked the perfect spot to lose his virginity to his girlfriend, an abandoned farmyard in the middle of cornfields: nice, private, and quiet. The only problem was... something smelled bad — like, really bad. He mentioned it to a county deputy he knew, and when the cop took a look, he found a body stuffed down a cistern. And then another, and another. By the time Lucas Davenport was called in, the police were up to fifteen bodies and counting. And as if that wasn't bad enough, when Lucas began to investigate, he made some disturbing discoveries of his own. The victims had been killed over a great many years, one every summer, regular as clockwork. How could this have happened without anybody noticing? Because one thing was for sure: the killer had to live close by. He was probably even someone they saw every day...

Murder. Scandal. Politics. And one billionaire heiress so dangerous in so many ways. It's the explosive new Lucas Davenport thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author. All hell has broken loose in the capital. An influential state senator has been caught with something very, very nasty on his office computer. The governor can't believe it — the senator's way too smart for that, even if he is from the other party. Something's not right. As Davenport investigates, the trail leads to a political fixer who has disappeared, then — troublingly — to the Minneapolis police department itself, and most unsettling of all, to a woman who could give Machiavelli lessons in manipulation. She has very definite ideas about the way the world should work — along with the money, ruthlessness, and cold-blooded will to make it happen.

Murder, scandal, political espionage and an extremely dangerous woman. Lucas Davenport's going to be lucky to get out of this one alive. A Minnesota political fixer has hit the jackpot — or so he thinks. Hired to take down the incumbent U.S. senator with a vicious smear, to open the way for an ambitious, take-no-prisoners heiress who sees the Senate as merely a stepping-stone, he decides his payoff should be larger. The blackmail demand should yield some pretty large numbers, he thinks. Instead, he gets only a small one — 9 millimeters, to be exact. In the heart. Davenport is investigating the smear when the trail leads to the man's disappearance, then — very troublingly — to the Minneapolis police department, then — most troublingly of all — to a woman who could give Machiavelli lessons. She has very definite ideas about the way the world should work, and the money, ruthlessness and sheer will to make it happen. No matter who gets in the way.

Lucas Davenport has seen many terrible murder scenes. This is one of the worst. In the small Minnesota town of Deephaven, an entire family has been killed — husband, wife, two daughters, dogs. There's something about the scene that pokes at Lucas's cop instincts — it looks an awful lot like the kind of scorched-earth retribution he's seen in drug killings sometimes. But this is a seriously upscale town, and the husband was an executive vice president at a big bank. It just doesn't seem to fit. Until it does. And where it leads Lucas will take him into the darkest nightmare of his life.

A wealthy banker is dead, shot once in the chest during a hunting trip. There are many reasons for him to be killed, and many people who would do the deed. But who did? Lucas Davenport has an idea. But this routine murder investigation is about to turn into something different. A cat-and-mouse game with a killer who does not hesitate to take the fight to Lucas himself. And those he loves...

Bei Abrissarbeiten in Minneapolis werden die Leichen von zwei in Plastik verpackten Mädchen gefunden. Es sieht aus, als hätten sie dort eine lange Zeit gelegen. Lucas Davenport weiß genau, wie lange. Im Jahr 1985 hatte der junge Polizist Davenport den Ruf, leichtsinnig zu sein und das Verschwinden der Mädchen war eine große Sache. Seine Vorgesetzten erklärten den Fall damals gegen seinen Willen für abgeschlossen. Nun hat er eine Chance den Fall wieder aufzurollen, jedoch eines wird im Verlauf der Ermittlungen immer klarer: Es waren nicht nur die Körper, die damals begraben wurden. Es war die Wahrheit.

After one troubled college-age student disappears and two are found slashed to death, Lucas Davenport finds himself hunting what appears to be a modern-day Jack the Ripper. But Lucas keeps getting the sneaking suspicion that there is something else involved. Something very bad, very dark, and as elusive as a phantom.

A killer has some serious cleaning up to do to keep from getting caught — and Davenport's detection skills make him number one on his hit list.

In life she was a high-profile model, but in death she's the focus of a media firestorm that demands action from Lucas Davenport. One of his own men is a suspect in her murder. But when a series of bizarre, seemingly unrelated slayings rock the city, Davenport suspects a connection that leads to an ingenious killer more ruthless than anyone feared.

The #1 New York Times Bestselling series featuring Lucas Davenport. Of all the criminals that Lucas Davenport has hunted, none has been as frighteningly intelligent as the woman who's hunting him now.