Strip Search: A Novel of Suspense

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Random House Publishing Group, Nov 25, 2008 - Fiction - 416 pages
She likes the sudden seconds of sheer terror. The neon dreams fit perfectly with the dreams that wake her up at night: about the man she loved and lost, about the constant temptations in her life, and about the odds that inevitably she’ll be in the right place at the right time to look naked, human madness in the eye.

Welcome to the world of Susan Pulaski, an unconventional and unusually subversive Las Vegas police behaviorist who’s already been canned once and has never been needed more. In the Sin City, someone is ritually murdering handpicked victims, each with dirty secrets in their past. The killer’s gimmick: Not only does he leave behind parts of the victims’ bodies, he also writes obscure mathematical formulas–in their blood. Pulaski doesn’t have a clue what the codes mean. But she knows someone who will.

Darcy O’Bannon is a twenty-six-year-old whose autistic savant skills are perfect for unraveling such mysteries as how many rivets are in the Eiffel Tower and how many Elvis impersonators there will be in the year 2020. As it turns out, innocent Darcy can also think along the arcane lines of Vegas’s most savage serial killer, peering into a numerological mystery that stretches back hundreds of years.

With her own life one spark away from going off the rails, her department turned against her, and the lives of those she cares most about in jeopardy, Pulaski hunts for dangerous prey in the shadow of the Strip–with herself as the perfect bait. And the closer she gets, the more terrifying and intriguing the case becomes, for the person she’s tracking possesses truly ingenious powers–and a heart full of hate.

The incomparable William Bernhardt brings to life America’s most fascinating city and the people who police it, while he invites the reader to join one woman’s fight to stay sane, stay alive, and keep a killer from making the most shocking score of all.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Section 1
3
Section 2
15
Section 3
20
Section 4
30
Section 5
34
Section 6
42
Section 7
48
Section 8
53
Section 24
219
Section 25
228
Section 26
233
Section 27
242
Section 28
253
Section 29
263
Section 30
268
Section 31
282

Section 9
61
Section 10
69
Section 11
81
Section 12
92
Section 13
101
Section 14
106
Section 15
118
Section 16
123
Section 17
134
Section 18
155
Section 19
166
Section 20
173
Section 21
189
Section 22
201
Section 23
210
Section 32
291
Section 33
305
Section 34
313
Section 35
324
Section 36
332
Section 37
338
Section 38
344
Section 39
360
Section 40
368
Section 41
372
Section 42
377
Section 43
386
Section 44
390
Section 45
401
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About the author (2008)

William Bernhardt is the author of many novels, including Primary Justice, Murder One, Criminal Intent, Death Row, Hate Crime, Dark Eye, Capitol Murder, and Capitol Threat. He has twice won the Oklahoma Book Award for Best Fiction, and in 2000 he was presented the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award “in recognition of an outstanding body of work in which we understand ourselves and American society at large.” A former trial attorney, Bernhardt has received several awards for his public service. He lives in Tulsa, and readers can e-mail him at WB@williambernhardt.com or visit his website at www.williambernhardt.com.

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