It is America's most notorious, unsolved, serial murder case: the Green River Killer slaughtered at least fifty women in the Seattle-Portland area during the 1980s and was never brought to justice. Now, in this gripping novel, the bestselling author of The Detective and Diehard presents his own horrifying portrayal of the Green River killings. River unmasks the Green River Killer and reveals why he was never caught--a story no true crime account has ever been able to tell.

Phil Boudreau is a veteran detective with the Seattle vice squad. Tough, smart, impatient, he appreciates beautiful women and genuinely cares for the throwaway kids on his beat. Boudreau knows from the first that the murderer is cunning and brilliant. Then the details of one of the killings burn a name into Boudreau's mind: Garrett Richard Lockman.

Sent to jail by Boudreau years before, Garrett Lockman is society's worst nightmare: a shrewd, manipulative career criminal driven by an unstoppable will and insatiable sexual needs. When Boudreau learns that Lockman had escaped from prison before the first killing, the detective conceives an obsession of his own: prove that Lockman is the perpetrator of the most sadistic crimes one human being can commit against another.