Carson Ryder/Harry Nautilus

TV evangelist Reverend Scaler made his fortune from firebrand attacks on the sins of modern America. But Scaler has preached his last sermon after being bound and beaten to death in an apparent S&M session. Detective Carson Ryder has his own problems. He’s edgy and unpredictable, seemingly unmoved by the discovery of an abandoned infant in a boat – nearby, a burnt-out shack, a body and signs of a struggle. Scaler’s tangled personal life reveals bizarre connections between the cases.

Children are disappearing in Mobile, Alabama, the latest snatched from her own bedroom. There are no clues – and, as yet, no bodies. With public anger reaching dangerous levels, homicide detective Carson Ryder finds a case hopelessly tangled up in murky local politics. Ryder’s bosses have one last hope, though: Connor Sandhill, a former cop whose uncanny ability to solve baffling crimes is legendary.

Soon after witnessing the escape of violent psychopath Bobby Crayline from prison, Alabaman detective Carson Ryder takes a rare break in the mountains. But his vacation is interrupted when an anonymous phone call summons him to the scene of a grisly murder. With more savage killings, and the heavy-handed FBI only inflaming the situation, Ryder and the local detective Donna Cherry sift through the increasingly bizarre clues. Is there more than one killer on the loose?

Across the US, a secret network of crisis centres permanently relocates women in serious danger from domestic abuse. But now someone is killing them before they reach their destinations. Detectives Carson Ryder and Harry Nautilus are having trouble gaining the trust of the volunteers who run the scheme. The only way in is for an undercover police officer to pose as a threatened woman, making herself a target and drawing the killer out. Reinetta Early is the ideal candidate - except for one thing.

From the best-selling author of Her Last Scream, a chilling tale of ritual murder and corruption, featuring Detective Carson Ryder. The Reverend Honus Schrum, a nationally renowned minister and owner of a broadcasting empire, tells the media he has come home to Key West to die. Meanwhile, Detective Carson Ryder is investigating the ritualistic murders of young women with chequered pasts, discovering the killings have religious overtones.