Near the start of Rosenfelt’s dynamite thriller, his second stand-alone after 2008’s Don’t Tell a Soul
, reporter Chris Turley from the Bergen News
, is about to meet an anonymous tipster at a Teaneck, N.J., park to discuss “corruption by a high-level government official” when an explosion rips through an office building opposite the park. Chris makes headline news by saving five people from the wreckage. Chris’s source, who calls himself “P.T.,” soon starts to brag about a killing spree (using remotely detonated bombs and poison darts), which won’t end unless Chris kills himself. Aided by his entertainment editor girlfriend, an FBI agent, and a homicide detective, Chris embarks on a wild hunt for the slippery psycho. Might P.T. be embittered Peter Randolph, who blames Chris’s late father, a famed journalist, for his own father’s suicide? Rosenfelt’s sly humor, breathless pacing, and terrific plot twists keep the pages spinning toward the showdown on New Year’s Eve in Times Square. (Mar.)
