Phychologist Alex Delaware and LAPD detective Milo Sturgis investigate the aunt of a former patient, after she confesses to a crime shortly before she dies.

The abduction of two art students turns out to have been faked, but the murder that follows is very real--Library journal.

Even with all his years of experience, LAPD homicide detective Milo Sturgis knows there are crimes his skill and savvy cannot solve alone. That's when he calls on brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware to read between the lines, where the darkest motives lurk. And if ever the good doctor's insight is needed, it's at the scene of a murder as baffling as it is brutal. There's no spilled blood, no evidence of a struggle, and, thanks to the victim's missing...

When a series of murders are connected with a shadowy psychology practice, Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis must immerse themselves in a world of manipulation and unethical "therapeutic" practices. Delaware must bring his moral clarity to bear on these wrongs, and do his best to see them righted.

A tipsy young woman seeking aid on a desolate highway disappears into the inky black night. A retired schoolteacher is stabbed to death in broad daylight. Two women are butchered after closing time in a small-town beauty parlor. These and other bizarre acts of cruelty and psychopathology are linked only by the killer's use of luxury vehicles and a baffling lack of motive. Now Delaware and Sturgis must track down the killer.