Hollywood homicide detective Petra Connor has helped psychologist Alex Delaware split tough cases in the past. And in Jonathan Kellerman’s New York Instances bestseller Billy Right she required the lead in the eager hunt for a teenage runaway stalked by a vengeful murderer. Today the complex and wryly compassionate Petra can be once more at the center of the actions, in a book of cunning twists and page-turning suspense.

Lifeless bodies sprawl in a dance-club parking lot after a brutal L.A. drive-by..READING MORE on the subject of Twisted: A Book Of the four seemingly arbitrary victims, one stands out: a woman with pink shoes or boots who cannot be identified-and who, times later, continues to be a Jane Doe. With zero qualified prospects and no apparent motive, it’s another case destined for the cold file-until Petra decides to follow her instincts and descends right into a world of journeying grifters and bloodthirsty killers, pursuing a possible eyewitness whose existence can be in mortal risk.

Selecting her elusive quarry-alive-isn’t all Petra is wearing her plate: departmental politics threatens to sabotage her court case, and her personal life isn’t doing far better. If everything wasn’t more than enough, Isaac Gomez, a whiz-kid grad college student researching homicide statistics at the train station house, is persuaded he’s discovered a bizarre connection between many unsolved murders. The victims acquired nothing in common, yet each passed away by the same technique, on a single date-a day that’s rapidly getting close to again. Which leaves Petra with short amount of time to unravel the twisted logic of the cunning predator who’s evaded recognition for years-and whose awful hour is once more at hand.

“Exactly why is it thus hard to put down a Kellerman thriller?” asks Web publishers Weekly. “It’s basic: the nonstop actions leaves you breathless; the story twists maintain you speculating; the themes . . . are provocative.” Those in need of still further evidence that “Kellerman has formed the psychological mystery novel into an art” (LA Times Publication Review) need search no further than Twisted.