Girl Missing (Previously published as Peggy Sue Got Murdered)

Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Tess Gerritsen, bestselling author of the Rizzoli & Isles series, her stunning first thriller! Previously published as Peggy Sue Got Murdered “Gerritsen has a knack for creating great characters and mysterious plots that seem straightforward but also dazzle with complexity and twists.”—Associated Press A beautiful young woman’s corpse is found dumped in a garbage-strewn alley. Now laid out in the office of medical examiner Kat Novak is an unidentified body that betrays no secrets—except for a matchbook clutched in one stiff hand, seven numbers scrawled inside. When a second victim is discovered, Kat begins to fear that a serial killer is stalking the streets, using a deadly drug to do his dirty work. The police are skeptical. The mayor won’t listen. One of the town’s most prominent citizens, with a missing daughter of his own, is also Kat’s chief suspect. As the death toll rises, Kat races to expose a deadly predator who is close enough to touch her. “[Gerritsen] has an imagination that allows her to conjure up depths of human behavior so dark and frightening that she makes Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft seem like goody-two-shoes.”—Chicago Tribune