Perfect Victim

Relentless pacing and well-crafted suspense drive the fourth Ulysses Grove thriller. When FBI profiler Grove wrote a textbook on the psychopathic mind, he never expected that someone would use it as an instruction manual. Then two murders are committed, copied from the examples in the text's pages. Called to the scene of one of the killings, Grove finds details that only appeared in his draft manuscript, things no one else could know about. His only clue comes from a cryptic message written by a dying friend. To catch the killer, Grove must delve into secrets of his past, enlist the aid of FBI recruit Edith Drinkwater and make an arduous cross-country trek. With skill and intelligence, Bonansinga (Twisted ) combines intricate mystery, macabre deaths and a horrifying villain with a slight supernatural twist, leading to a heart-stopping climax. (Dec.)