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Stalked
By Brian Freeman

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Product Description

Lieutenant Jonathan Stride knows his partner Maggie Bei is in trouble when she reports a deadly crime on a bitter winter night. She’s obviously hiding a terrible secret, and her silence only feeds suspicion. Maggie isn’t the only one keeping secrets in Duluth. A seductive young woman has disappeared, leaving behind a stash of lurid fantasies and a cryptic message: I know who it is. Following a twisted trail, Stride uncovers a sordid web of violence and voyeurism that someone is willing to kill to keep hidden. Stride isn’t alone. His lover Serena Dial – a homicide cop turned private investigator – is chasing a blackmailer who knows all the city’s dirty secrets. Even Maggie’s. But as Stride and Serena hunt for a killer, a predator with a vicious past is hunting them – with a terrifying plan for revenge. Now every step they take to expose the truth brings them closer to a showdown amid the howling winds of a winter storm. Where survival in the blinding snow is measured in seconds. Where crimes can be buried forever.

Product Details

Amazon Sales Rank: #57605 in Books
Published on: 2008-02-19
Released on: 2008-02-19
Original language: English
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
368 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In Freeman's chilling, atmospheric latest, Jonathan Stride returns from a Las Vegas stint (in Stripped) to head the major crimes detective bureau of his former Duluth, Minn., department. When the husband of Maggie Bei, Stride's former detective partner, is murdered, Maggie becomes the prime suspect, and Stride determines to clear her. Meanwhile, Dan Erickson, an ambitious Duluth county attorney, hires Stride's lover, PI Serena Dial (who returned with Stride from Vegas), to pay off a blackmailer. Freeman slowly weaves the cases together into a labyrinthine search for a serial killer. Following the anonymous predator as well as the cops, the reader is teased by the fiend's identity and hidden motives. The stalwart, intuitive Stride digs into the case's disparate elements, including the city's sexual underworld, and a terrified Serena runs into serious trouble. A strong narrative crammed with twists and studded with sex and violence; a mysterious, even mystical, sense of place; and a well-crafted set of characters and relationships make this one of Freeman's stronger crime thrillers. (Feb.)
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From AudioFile
The world is a dark and brooding place, filled with sexual fantasies and disturbed individuals dead set on fulfilling them at any cost, even death. This is the setting for Brian Freeman's latest novel, which centers on Investigator Jonathan Stride and his search for answers in the winter-ravaged city of Duluth, Minnesota. Narrator Joe Barrett steps into this world with a large palette of voices and accents but ventures too far over the line of believability. Barrett's overenunciated and overacted characterizations take the honesty out of Freeman's atmospheric thriller. Listeners will be disappointed with the performance of this otherwise captivating novel. L.B. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About the Author
Brian Freeman is the author of psychological suspense novels featuring detectives Jonathan Stride and Serena Dial. His books have been sold in 17 languages. His debut thriller, IMMORAL, won the Macavity Award and was a nominee for the Edgar®, Dagger, Anthony, and Barry awards for best first novel. Brian and his wife, Marcia, have lived in Minnesota for more than twenty years.

Customer Reviews

Politics and Sex Don't Mix
The third book in a series of stories involving Duluth police and politicians. The book delivers rapid-fire action from beginning to end. The plotline is a series of different stories or subplots that the author intricately melds together. I especially found it interesting how the author works current events into the book which makes it near impossible to put down. I almost thought I had the ending figured out too...happy to read that I didn't.

Well-crafted, intricate thriller/mystery
Brian Freeman's 3rd outing after last year's Stripped, take Stride and Serena Dial, his paramour from Las Vegas, back to Duluth. Though conflicts of interest prevent Stride from directly investigating the murder of his former partner, he nevertheless becomes involved. Meanwhile, Serena, adjusting to life in the frozen north, has put up her shingle as a PI and is hired to act as an intermediary for a blackmail drop for a prominent local lawyer. What starts as two disparate cases converges into one before diverging into three (or at least it appears to be three).

I enjoyed the interaction and subtlies of the characters, who are well-drawn and interesting, especially the pseudo love-triangle between Stride, Serena and Maggie. This is a well-crafted thriller/mystery with nice twists and surprises. I deducted one star because Freeman tried too hard to make the apparent 3 cases connect. Some of it, especially the "2nd" climax, appears confusing and hard to follow but nonetheless still satisfying and rewarding. Freeman will need to work hard to top this one.