Max Segal

The attractive redhead at the A&P checkout counter opens her checkbook and begins writing a check, unaware that she’s signing her own death warrant. The man behind her in the dark overcoat memorizes the address on her check. When she leaves the A&P, he follows her home. In the next few weeks he tracks her every move...and when she rebuffs his advances, he stabs her. Five women, chosen at random, fall victim to a man the press dubs the Hyena. The NYPD has no leads until young Babette Watson walks into homicide detective Max Segal’s office.

A series of successful professional men are found slashed to death in their beds, apparently during sex, the presumed victims of a gay murderer. Homicide detective Max Segal is on the case, but he’s distracted by his failing marriage and an attractive journalist who is covering the case. Judy Wells has everyone fooled, including the police. She’s been methodically stalking, seducing, and murdering every man who has ever dumped her - and her revenge seems almost justified. But the FBI is closing in.

Why would a nurse’s aide terrified of heights hurl herself from a 20th-story rooftop in Queens? Why would an attractive librarian with a water phobia be found naked and floating face-down in the Astoria Park swimming pool? How did the scantily clad body of a young bookstore clerk with a horror of snakes end up inside a Central Park Zoo cage with a 200-pound python? NYPD Detective Max Segal, strung out from a devastating divorce, is determined to find the killer before more women die.