Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Joe Lassiter awakens to the ring of the phone in the dead of night. His sister and her young son have died in a blaze in their expensive home near Washington, D.C. Rushing to the scene, Lassiter learns the deaths were no accident: his sister and nephew were brutally murdered in their beds before the fire was set. The police are stumped, but Lassiter knows one thing: whoever killed his last living relatives provoked the wrong man. Lassiter heads a thriving high-tech investigative agency in the nation's capital. If there's a paper trail, he can follow it. A computer encryption, he can crack it. An identity to reveal, he will track it down. Now he's got to uncover why an innocent mother and her child were targeted for death. And this one is personal. There is a mysterious suspect. Discovering his identity only raises more questions. Then Lassiter uncovers another crime - another innocent mother and child murdered. The more he unearths, the larger the web of conspiracy grows. Every thread he pulls tightens the knot of deception. And as the link that connects the victims eludes him, he suspects that others my die very soon if he can't find the truth - a search that will lead him into a dangerous international chase. And a truth that will shock him - and the reader - to his very marrow.Like the New York Times bestseller The Fourth Protocol, this fast-paced, suspense-filled fiction debut takes medical technology one shocking step farther. Joe Lassiter must make the connection between a devastating secret revealed to a priest by a scientist in Italy and the arson-related deaths of his sister and nephew--before more deaths occur. 448 pp. National media publicity. Print ads. 125,000 print. (Espionage/Thriller)
Synopsis
A phone call in the dead of night brings Joe Lassiter shattering news. His sister and young nephew have died in a fire in their home near Washington, D.C. Yet Lassiter soon learns a chilling fact: His loved ones were brutally murdered before the blaze was set. . . .
The mysterious suspect's identity only raises more questions. Then Lassiter uncovers another crime—another innocent mother and child murdered. The more he unearths, the larger the web of conspiracy grows, as his search for answers leads him on a dangerous international chase toward a truth that will shock him—and the world—to the very bone. . . .
Publishers Weekly
After hearing the confession of a renowned scientist who is now dying, the pastor of a remote parish in the Umbrian region of Italy rushes to Rome to alert the Vatican powers of an unspeakable sin. Within months, Joe Lassiter, a D.C.-area detective, learns of the brutal deaths of his sister, Kathy, and her toddler son, Brandon, in a mysterious fire in their home in suburban Burke, Va., in which an unknown Italian arsonist was also horribly burned. While Joe and the D.C. police keep watch on the burn victim, Brandon's body is dug from its grave and set afire again. After this horror, Joe discovers that Kathy and Brandon were only two of 34 victims worldwide, all mothers and toddler boys, killed in their beds and then burned beyond recognition. They were all connected through an Umbrian fertility clinic run by a scientist and theologian who, not unexpectedly, is himself now dead, his clinic a pile of ashes. At the center of this international carnage looms Umbra Domini, Shadow of the Lord, an ultra-secret Roman Catholic fraternity. At great risk, Joe sets out to save the one woman and child who have so far escaped Umbra's reach and in doing so discovers the staggering truth about these slaughtered innocents. Case, an investigative reporter, writes with intelligence and flair. He has built a first-rate thriller with an astonishingly timely revelation that's well worth staying up late for. (Apr.)