Mariah Stewart, Dead Wrong

Dead Wrong

Mariah Stewart

Ballantine, Jun 2004, $6.99, 416 pp.

ISBN: 0345463927

Archer Lowell, Curtis Alan Channing, and Vince Giordano share a jail holding cell waiting for the law to process them when all hell breaks loose as someone escapes custody. To pass time while the complex is totally shut down, the trio discusses why they are here when the conversation turns to who would they like to kill. They agree that to be successful they would have to exchange victims like the Hitchcock and DeVito movies did.

Not long afterward a serial killer appears murdering three females with the same name M. Douglas as listed in order in the phone book. Next on the list is court appointed children's advocate Mara Douglas. Her sister FBI profiler Dr. Anne McCall calls in a favor owed her by FBI agent Aidan Shields. She wants Aidan to protect her sibling. However, Aidan wants to refuse as he wants to go into guilty seclusion following the death of his brother on his last assignment. Still for Anna he will do what he can to keep Mara safe. Moving in with her in her Philadelphia area home, Aidan and Mara fall in love, but he fears if something happens to her he will die too.

The first of Mariah Stewart's "Dead" books is a stupendous serial killer romance starring two wonderful lead characters. The twist of who performs the killing is provided in plain sight yet the audience will wonder whether Strangers on the Train really occurred. Fans of tense thrillers that never let up until the climax will know that this novel is dead on in exciting action and a breathtaking romance.

Harriet Klausner