Publisher's Weekly Review
Near the start of this outstanding series launch from Edgar-winner Gardiner (Phantom Instinct), Caitlin Hendrix, a detective with San Francisco's Narcotics Task Force, visits a crime scene in an Alameda County cornfield-a brutal double murder. The killer pounded nails into the chests of the two victims, forming the symbol for mercury, the hallmark of the notorious serial killer known as the Prophet who struck the Bay Area during the 1990s, then disappeared. The Prophet is no stranger to Caitlin: her father, Mack Hendrix, was the lead detective on the original case, which left him an emotional wreck and tore his family apart. Soon reassigned to homicide, Caitlin is determined to bring the unsub-or unknown subject-down this time and finish what her father started. As the body count rises, the stakes become even more personal, as the Prophet targets those closest to Caitlin. Taut pacing and sympathetic characters play against a terrifying villain, who will crawl beneath your skin and trouble your sleep. Thriller fans will eagerly await the sequel. Five-city author tour. Agent: Deborah Schneider, Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Move over, Zodiac. The latest of the countless fictional serial killers you've inspired gives you a blistering run for your money.Two decades after a mysteriously self-limited five-year murder spree that cost 11 Bay Area citizens their lives and cost Alameda County Sheriff's Department Detective Mack Hendrix his partner, his peace of mind, and much of his sanity, the killer whom police departments in two Bay Area counties have dubbed the Prophet roars back with a vengeance. Mack's daughter, Caitlin, a newly minted Narcotics detective with the ACSD, is detailed to Homicide in hopes that she can make use of her father's encyclopedic knowledge of the case. Ignoring her distraught mother's advice that "you're throwing yourself into the volcano," Caitlin struggles to tap Mack's memory for forgotten insights, fight off the attentions of obnoxious East Bay Herald reporter Bart Fletcher, and anticipate the next move of the Prophet, aka Mercury. The Prophet meanwhile dispatches two pairs of victimsa waitress and a supermarket checker are whipped, strangled, and nailed to death, and the deaths of two partners are broadcast live in a coffee shop to a horrified audience in an unforgettably grueling set piecebut has to settle for only one of still another pair he's targeted. Along the way, he leaves a series of taunting notes addressed to the wider public before focusing in particular on Caitlin, who luckily turns out to be just as clever as her diabolical prey when it matters most. Every detail Gardiner (Phantom Instinct, 2014, etc.) uses to grease the skids is over-the-top, but readers sucked into this vortex won't care; they'll be too busy counting down the hours to the appearance of the promised sequel, which seems poised to begin about five minutes after the final scene. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Twenty years ago, narcotics detective Caitlin Hendrix's father failed to catch the Prophet, a cunning serial killer in the Bay Area, and it sent him into a decades-long alcoholic spiral. Now, the Prophet has ended his two-decade hiatus, leaving his signature astrological symbol with the bodies of a couple killed on their first date. Determined to stop the killer who destroyed her family, Caitlin manages to swing an assignment to the task force. As the Prophet works at breakneck speed, the task force struggles to decipher his cryptic messages and the connections between the pairs of victims he leaves with each round of killings. When the Prophet discovers that the daughter of his nemesis is working the case, he targets her with taunts, leaving a wealth of clues that could be his undoing or a trap leading Caitlin to hers. Based on the unsolved crimes of the real-life Zodiac Killer, this thriller is well crafted and psychologically complex, easily comparable to Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme series.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2017 Booklist