The malign criminal genius of Roses Are Red is back and fixing to give Alex a hard time once again. The FBI joins Patterson's dogged cop in a particularly unsettling investigation: two San Francisco joggers have been viciously murdered and are found suspended by their feet, with all the blood drained from their bodies. And when further brutal deaths follow in California and on the east coast, Alex is forced to contemplate the bizarre possibility of modern-day vampires, although his instincts point him to one of the many sinister religious cults that flourish on the West Coast. Aided by Jamilla Hughes, a streetwise young woman detective from San Francisco, Alex finds that he has to crack not one but two impenetrable mysteries to stop further bloodletting.

Readers of Patterson expect the extremely concise, page-turning chapters (116 of them), along with a reluctance to dawdle over details of his hero's personal life, and both characteristics are firmly back in place. If you can resist reading this one in just a few sittings, you deserve some kind of a thriller-reader's medal. --Barry Forshaw