In the first chapter this story begins with a young woman dressed only in a torn negligee running through the woods with a very painful bullet in her back. She must stay on her feet and get away from these woods or the killer will catch up with her and finish her off for sure. She stumbles out onto the highway and is miraculously taken in by an old man in a pickup. At first the man cannot believe his luck having a mostly naked beautiful young lady flag him down but when he sees she has been shot he turns serious and gets her out of there. We won't see this young lady until the end of this story.
Just as Nana and the kids enter the living room with the birthday cake and begin to sing happy birthday to Detective Alex Cross he gets a phone call. The singing abruptly stops. It is a homicide. Alex objects to his boss but when he is informed that the victim is his niece and that the "remains" are at the morgue Alex is overcome with shock.
Alex hates the term "remains" and can't understand why anyone would use it until he arrives at the morgue. His niece had been fed through an industrial sized wood chipper. Her "remains" were in a large plastic bag; just bits of bone and torn flesh. He understand the reason for the term "remains". The ME was able to get a finger print from one digit that was fairly intact. Other than that finger print and a DNA analysis there was not any way to recognize the "remains" as that of Alex's niece.
Investigation turns up the name "Zeus"; a pseudonym for a man who wants to guard his identity when he uses the exclusive and expensive services of Washington DC call girls. But Zeus goes beyond sex and kills many of his paramours during the act of sex. Many, many other young ladies have been fed to the chipper in the past.
But when Alex begins to learn things about the killings and get pieces of the puzzle he is called to the White House and pressure is brought to bear on him to turn over his case to the head of Secret Service for the White house. Alex diplomatically asks for time to consider the request and then continues with his own investigation. Alex learns that there a lot of customers for this call service. All of them are very rich and many of them are highly placed in DC society; senators, judges and top businessmen.
Even though the pressure on Alex to drop out continues to build he does not slow his investigation. The tension builds to the final few chapters where the identity of Zeus is revealed. You will need to get a copy of "I, Alex Cross" to find out more. This is one of those tales that you don't want to know the ending before you read it for yourself. It is a great addition to detective fiction and earns a 9 of 10 on the Weaver meter.
