The Late Man Author:James Preston Girard An unknown, and perhaps, unidentifiable, body lies beside a dirt road north of Wichita, Kansas. It is the apparent victim -- the first in several years -- of a local serial murderer. Three people are about to become transformed by uncertainty and fear. — L. J. Loomis, a resourceful cop, Stosh Babicki, an earnest reporter, and Sam Haum... more », the 'late man,' will find themselves compellingly drawn into the search for the Strangler. Each is the others' unlikely ally in a passionate pursuit for justice.
Yet their growing obsession with the killer will lead them down a more dangerous path. Haunted by sexual demons, they will journey down into the darkest regions of the human heart, where no one can be trusted... Not even themselves.
Six years after a series of four brutal murders of young women outside Wichita, Kansas, the killer is at it again -- or is he?
Sam Haun, late-night man at the local paper, the Mid-American, who's been dredged out of mourning his wife and daughter, killed a year ago in a traffic accident, and assigned to dog Homicide Capt. L.J. Loomis on the case, wonders whether the most recent killing could be a copycat crime. As the investigation narrows down to focus on Kirby Banks, a cyclist who's done time for assaulting a prostitute, Sam, discovering a journal that recounts his late wife's affair with reporter Frank Rule, imagines an affair he might share with Frank's current lover, his junior colleague Stosh Babicki -- and imagines too, more and more vividly, what it would be like to be in the killer's place. « less