Joel Berman

Scalpel Joel Berman

An attorney is murdered. Another attorney is murdered. And another. It looks, one observer suggests, like somebody here has a serious problem with attorneys! Two surgeons, a man and wife. She ... is sued for malpractice and loses her case-a devastating blow to a proud professional that drives her into terrible despair and finally suicide. He ... watches his wife slowly pushed toward self-destruction by the cynical hostility of prosecutors in a legal system that has lost its concern for justice. But he decides he'll reintroduce justice into the system-his own kind, administered in his own way. Then malpractice attorneys begin to turn up dead. Each one is uniquely executed-and surgically altered in bizarre and disturbing ways. There are no fingerprints, no blood. Few clues are left behind. Usable evidence is sparse. And the killer, as he contemplates what he's accomplished, silently dedicates each murder to the memory of his beloved wife. The police detective assigned to this case, Septimus "Mac" McClymonds, soon confirms that he is in a battle of wits with a most unusual and highly intelligent serial killer. As he carefully studies the details of each crime, attempting to develop a profile of the perpetrator, he finds himself continually frustrated, and he is even taunted with grim humor by macabre notes the murderer leaves on the bodies of his victims, celebrating yet another death. Thus develops a cat-and-mouse game between Mac and his quarry, until the elusive killer finally seems to have been identified and Mac is about to nab him-except for . . . .