City of the Dead

The pulse-pounding new thriller featuring FBI agent Franco Patrese, in New Orleans on the hunt for a warped serial killer as Hurricane Katrina threatens the city.The first one was found with a rattlesnake in place of her missing left leg, and a mirror smashed into her forehead by an axe blade.

Strange... but even stranger that she'd just told new FBI agent Franco Patrese she wanted to uncover a conspiracy as disgusting as it is unthinkable.In the sledgehammer heat of a New Orleans summer, the leads - and the bodies - pile up thick and fast for Patrese and NOPD homicide detective Selma Fawcett.

They're inescapably drawn into an underworld murky even by the standards of the Big Sleazy.The case is wide open.

What is the part played by St John Varden, the city's richest man, or of his son Victor, head of a high-end mercenary company?

There's even a suspect far closer to home in the shape of Luther Marcq, Selma's ex-husband, who was dishonourably discharged from the military after the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. And, of course, there's Marie Laveau, the underworld boss and self-styled Voodoo Queen.As they try to piece together the connections between the seediest players on the city's stage, only two things remain certain - there are huge secrets hidden in these cesspools of corruption and crime, and some people will do anything to keep them that way.And all the while, the city's apocalypse looms.

Her name is Katrina, and she's taking aim...