A really good thriller and one I thoroughly enjoyed as I do all of Deaver's books.

Back Cover Blurb:
It's Washington, DC; it's the last night of the year, and people are dying....
At 9am on New Year's Eve, 1999, a man gets onto the packed escalator of a metro station and fires a silenced machine gun into the crowd. He escapes without being spotted in the confusion caused by the horror of this vicious attack, which leaves dozens of killed and injured people.
One hour later, a note is delivered to the mayor: 20 million dollars, or the writer will instruct the killer to strike again; at 4pm, at 8pm, at midnight....Hundreds more will die. There can be no defence against this plan, not on that day, not in that city. The money has to be found, the ransom will be paid. But then a hit and run victim is identified as the mastermind behind the operation, and suddenly there's no way of stopping the psychotic gunman from killing again, and again, and again....
The only clue the FBI has to go on is the note...and the only man in the country who might be able to decipher its secrets is Parker Kincaid, forensic document expert, who, along with agent in charge Margaret Lukas, races against the clock to stop the killer before each deadline.