Princess of Wands

Начало книги

Dedicated to the memory of K. Steinberg, a fine Southron Jewish woman.

Raise a glass of something pink, frosty and alcoholic. Her voice and presence will be sorely missed.

As this book was being prepared for print, Hurricane Katrina came ashore and utterly destroyed many of the sites included in the story. It can only be hoped, at this time, that those scenes will someday return to us.

Our prayers go out to the people of Louisiana and Mississippi.

The body of the young woman had been twisted into a fetal position and strapped with duct tape. Then it had been dropped in a black plastic contractor bag and rewrapped. Which seemed like a heck of a lot of trouble if you were going to just dump the body in the woods.

Detective Sergeant Kelly Lockhart stroked his beard as the coroner’s assistant stretched the body out. The corpse had been in the bag long enough for decomposition to work its way on the ligaments that stiffened the body in rigor mortis. And for the smell to change. But Kelly had seen far worse in his ten years as an investigator. And the department wanted to know, right away, if she was another victim of the Rippers.

Читать дальше →