The List by J.A. Konrath - 3 stars

[Ellen]

A grisly murder in Chicago brings Detective Tom Mankowski into a staggering nightmare. The victim has a number tattoo on the bottom of his foot; Tom has one too. Tom never knew why he was marked in such a way but he does know that he is adopted and that his adoptive parents were given a substantial amount of money to care for him. Now Tom realizes that there are probably more people with similar tattoos and that someone is trying to kill them. Tom and his police partner Roy will soon meet up with the others. Some are fine upstanding citizens and some are violent sociopaths. What is the story behind the tattoos and who wants the marked people dead?

Konrath has quite the imagination, I must say. The truth of the tattoos is an intriguing story with some very far-fetched science involved. There is surprisingly quite a bit of humor in this horror story and a lot of non-stop action.