Dr. Stanley Kolberg was not just murdered. His lifeless body was battered and broken almost beyond recognition, as though his unknown killer had been driven by a ferocious rage that had exploded madly out of control.

 

As far as the Seattle police are concerned, there is no shortage of suspects. A distinguished psychiatrist, Kolberg specialized in anger management and often treated violent offenders with severe psychiatric disorders. His client list is a virtual lineup of sociopaths, psychotics, and convicted murderers, any one of whom might have unleashed their homicidal fury on the doctor.

 

For Dr. Joel Ashman, who consults as a profiler for Seattle Homicide, the shocking crime strikes particularly close to home. Not only was the victim a fellow psychiatrist, but Kolberg was also his former partner and mentor--he was practically a second father to Joel, who soon finds himself the target of a faceless stalker as well.

 

Who killed Stanley Kolberg and why? The answers lie hidden in a lurid underworld of depraved sex and violence--and in the tortured past of one disturbed young woman.