Should be asleep but just finished and wanted to get this down while it was fresh, but something tells me I will remember this book for a while..It is the story of a detective on a ten year manhunt for a calculating serial killer infamous for the victims's "beauty marks" or heart shaped scars inflicted by driving nails in their chest..while Detective Sheridan is hot on the trail of who he thinks is the killer he is surprised and drugged by Gretchen Lowell, the beautiful psycho actual killer that is now intent on inflicting some kind of sick, intense control over him in life and death. For ten days Dt. Sheridan is tortured, killed and resusitated, drugged and basically driven insane by Gretchen when she decides to save his life and turn herself in..From prison she delivers the names and locations of more bodies she has accumulated while Dt. Sheridan falls into his own personal hell of isolation, pill dependency and a strange intense obsession to Gretchen that is more than sexual, psychological or even rational..He abandons his family and friends for her and the visitation scenes between the two are eerie and intriguing and I think more time should have been devoted there but I see its a Book One so we'll have to wait and see..Alternating in between the chilling ten day torture period and their weekly meetings there is another serial killer, the Afterschool Strangler that Dt. Sheridan is called on to assist in capturing although he is still mentally unwell from his own ordeal... Doped up on prescription meds and a well meaning honest desire to help people he follows another killer and this time has allowed himself to be followed by Susan, a spunky reporter with pink hair who unknowingly gets closer than she thinks to both serial killers and Dt. Sheridan, her past comes to haunt her and the ending was surprisingly suspenseful as you suspect the killer but are never really sure..I was impressed by this book after reading so much about it from other reviewers and definitely think I will read more, a gorgeous, smart female serial killer, very interesting, piqued my interest and if it would have been longer and alittle more fleshed out would have satisfied me....