Frank Carlson Library

Addicted to painkillers and still bound to Gretchen Lowell, the beautiful serial killer who had abducted and tortured him before turning herself in, Portland detective Archie Sheridan is caught in another deadly duel with a murderer targeting teenage girls.

Portland detective Archie Sheridan hunted Gretchen Lowell for a decade, and after his last ploy to catch her went spectacularly wrong, remains hospitalized months later. When they last spoke, they entered a detente of sorts--Archie agreed not to kill himself if she agreed not to kill anyone else. But when a new body is found accompanied by Gretchen's trademark heart, all bets are off and Archie is forced back into action. Has the Beauty Killer returned...

Struggling to move past his traumatic encounters with serial killer Gretchen Lowell, Archie Sheridan investigates a murder involving a brutally tortured victim before he is contacted by Lowell, who claims to have inside information about the case.

Detective Archie Sheridan just has to get through the next few days, then his birthday and Halloween will be over. But with serial killer Gretchen Lowell on the loose, the investigation into the murder of a DEA agent demanding his attention, and journalist Susan Ward needing a favor, it's going to be a long weekend. Soon Archie finds himself crashing a masked ball on the private island of a notorious drug kingpin. By morning, Archie is back on painkillers,...