Daniel Mansfield Jr. has spent his life in the shadow of a legend. His father—the celebrated police chief who ended the reign of The Bookbinder, a serial killer who used the flesh of his victims to bind his books—left Daniel a name to live up to and a department to inherit. Now Daniel sits in that same chair, in that same town of Sossaman, Arizona, carrying that same weight.
Then a young woman turns up dead bearing The Bookbinder’s unmistakable signature.
The problem is Brian Quintana, the man Daniel’s father arrested, has been behind bars for nearly forty years. Which means either an imitator is at work, or Daniel’s father put the wrong man away.
As clues pile up and another victim disappears, Daniel must confront the most dangerous question of his career: what if the legacy he has dedicated his life to protecting was built on a lie?
Meanwhile, Johnathan Ottilie is unraveling a secret of his own, one that connects his family directly to The Bookbinder’s dark history in ways he never imagined and cannot outrun.
Two families. Two inherited sins. One small Arizona community that will never be the same.
Fast-paced, propulsive, and relentlessly suspenseful, this is a crime thriller for fans of Thomas Harris, Michael Connelly, and Jeffery Deaver, where the hunt for a serial killer forces a son to choose between protecting his father’s name and serving the truth that could destroy everything.
The roots of evil run deep. Only blood can tear them out.
