Cold Cold Heart

Hot, hot book: a spy-turned-con and a cop-turned-reporter hunt down a homicidal maniac in this wickedly entertaining first novel by the pseudonymous Elliott. Though adding few wrinkles to the hoary serial-killer corpus, the author gets readers' blood racing as he sets two charismatic heroes, one-time CIA ace Mike Culley and former NYPD hotshot Julie Houser, on the trail of John Malik, an ex-KGB colonel who's bailed out of the CIA's witness protection program in order to mutilate and slay young brunettes. Houser meets and romances Culley while covering the serial killings in Virginia for the Washington Post; he's there because he's agreed to track down Malik in exchange for instant release from the prison stint he drew by taking a fall for his now-hated CIA bosses. A cynical rivalry between the CIA and the FBI, a daring counterfeit scheme and a colorful sidetrip to Brooklyn's Russian neighborhood of Brighton Beach lead to the kidnapping of Culley's beloved daughter by Malik, who with each grisly-and gruesomely detailed-killing grows into an ever more electrifying monster. Emotions run high; nearly nonstop action explodes in cinematic set pieces; guided by the smooth-as-glass narration, readers will stay up far into the night. Paperback rights to Dell/Delacorte; film rights to John McTiernan/Cinergi; Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild selection. (Sept.)