They Can Find You Anywhere.
They Can Get To You Anytime.
Society's Rejects Are Striking Back.
Disgraced former FBI agent Kevin Arneson once hunted the world's most dangerous terrorists. Now, back home in a tense, post-George Floyd Minneapolis, he takes on a new challenge when one of his closest friends receives serious death threats. The suspects: group of embittered, sex-starved, and sometimes violent young men called incels, who are terrorizing and then killing successful middle-aged women with no apparent connection to each other. Each victim inexplicably admits the killers into her home, despite widespread publicity and hysteria over the serial murders. Arneson, defying warnings from the FBI and police to stand down, recruits his friend Camryn Becket, an ex-lover and former deep-cover CIA agent, to help track the mystery assailants. As the death toll mounts, Arneson and Becket pursue the killers, burrowing through layers of deception. In a stunning climax, they uncover a monstrous scheme that goes beyond the murders, reaching back into their own troubled past.
They Can Find You Anywhere.
They Can Get To You Anytime.
Society's Rejects Are Striking Back.
Disgraced former FBI agent Kevin Arneson once hunted the world's most dangerous terrorists. Now, back home in a tense, post-George Floyd Minneapolis, he takes on a new challenge when one of his closest friends receives serious death threats. The suspects: group of embittered, sex-starved, and sometimes violent young men called incels, who are terrorizing and then killing successful middle-aged women with no apparent connection to each other. Each victim inexplicably admits the killers into her home, despite widespread publicity and hysteria over the serial murders. Arneson, defying warnings from the FBI and police to stand down, recruits his friend Camryn Becket, an ex-lover and former deep-cover CIA agent, to help track the mystery assailants. As the death toll mounts, Arneson and Becket pursue the killers, burrowing through layers of deception. In a stunning climax, they uncover a monstrous scheme that goes beyond the murders, reaching back into their own troubled past.
“It was a little unnerving, to be honest,” said Renee Hoynes. “It’s not every day somebody actually threatens to kill you.”
“Had you gotten threats before these?” The two sat in Renee’s south Minneapolis kitchen late at night, drinks in front of them on the table. Next to the glasses sat the visitor’s cell phone.
“Oh, sure, but not like this. I mean, people write in all the time. Or call or email. And some of the stuff I get isn’t very savory. Proposals of marriage, invitations for one-night stands. Then there are the pictures of . . . you know. Disgusting.”
The visitor responded with a knowing smile. “Of course.” Renee, a local news anchorwoman, was beautiful, the stuff of male fantasies.
“Usually,” Renee said, “the threats come because I haven’t taken somebody seriously. Or sometimes they come from wives, whose husbands are obsessed. Refill?”
“No, thanks. So, what’s different about these threats?”
Renee’s lovely face crinkled a bit. She worried about crinkles. One of these years the ratings would slip. She, along with her big contract, would be jettisoned, replaced by somebody younger, cheaper, and without the dreaded crinkles. “I’ve been getting them for a few months now. They’re terrible, absolutely vile. Unlike anything I’ve gotten before. Plus, I find out the same people are trashing me on some wacko social media site for incels and white supremacists.”
“Incels?”
“‘Involuntary celibates.’ We did a story on them once. Young guys, nerdy, awkward and angry. They spend a lot of time online. They’ve been rejected by women, and they don’t take it well. They blame the women rather than themselves. They’re filled with rage. I’ve read that some of them are also white supremacists.”
“Why threaten you? It’s not like any of them has tried to date you, right?”
Renee shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe any attractive or self-confident woman triggers their anger. It’s not like I’ve personally encountered any of them, at least that I know of.” She exhaled. “Anyway, this group has threatened to rape and kill me in all kinds of creative and exquisitely painful ways.”
“Really? Such as?”
Renee recoiled. “You don’t want to know the details, do you?”
The guest smiled. “Of course not. Have you told the police?”
“The station’s security people reported it, yes. The cops sort of threw up their hands and said they couldn’t trace the threats so be extra careful.”
“Careful,” said the guest. “So, you don’t go to your car alone after the ten o’clock news.”
“Right. They have a guy who will go with you. I took advantage of that tonight.” Renee felt an uncomfortable vibe. She wanted another drink, but her visitor had declined.
“And you’ve got an alarm and cameras here at the house,” the visitor said.
“Sure. And ever since the divorce, I’ve made sure they’re turned on.”
“You look a little worried there, Renee.”
She looked around her expensive kitchen. “Truth be told, I’m petrified. You wouldn’t believe the stuff they’ve posted online and sent me in emails.”
The smile again. “You know, I believe I would.”
Renee felt flat-out spooked now. She looked around again. “I hate to be inhospitable, but I’ve got to hit it.”
“There’s no hurry,” said the guest, who reached into a small backpack, produced several items, and began placing them onto the table next to their glasses.
“What on earth—” Renee began, realizing for the first time that she had sat herself in the corner of the kitchen’s breakfast nook, and the only way out was past the guest to the doorway. Stupid.
“You live in a beautiful home, Renee. Unfortunately, things are about to get a bit messy. Now, it’s a mess that has nothing to do with me, because, well, I was never here.” Renee stared in horror at the items lined up on the table. A small hand vacuum. A bottle of bleach. Several rags. A plastic bag. And the final items, two rubber gloves. “My disappearing kit. I was never here.”
“What do you mean? What on earth . . .”
With that, the visitor produced a large knife.
Renee looked frantically around her kitchen, at the expensive pots and pans hanging from racks above the island. “My God, what are you doing?”
The visitor tested the knife’s edge with a thumb. “People like you, Renee—beautiful, wealthy, adored, entitled—you have no idea what’s going on. You don’t take threats seriously. You don’t take the rest of us seriously. And that’s a problem. A problem for me. But most of all for you.”
Renee began to stand up, but it was too late. The visitor was around the table and had plunged the knife into her abdomen before she had any chance to react.
Renee, clutching her stomach in unspeakable agony, fell over sideways onto the floor, realizing her guest was right. She hadn’t had a clue.
Kevin Arneson is a disgraced FBI agent. He succeeded at a game he wasn't supposed to win, and that didn't sit well with his superiors. The FBI has now shuffled him off their payroll and into a consulting business in Minneapolis. He's to keep his head down, nose clean, off the radar - and he definitely isn't supposed to get involved in any high-profile investigations. If anyone even thinks he's going to be in a position to talk about what he knows, he will disappear so deep, he may never resurface.
But when his friend Shelby makes the so-called Incel Killers' target list, Arneson takes notice. Women in positions of authority, like Shelby, are being threatened in graphic, nasty ways and then brutally killed. But there's no apparent connection between the women, no common thread that might reveal the killer's identity. Various law enforcement agencies claim to be investigating, but the killer seems to always be one jump ahead, and leads are thin on the ground.
Arneson can't be officially involved in any investigation. But he can and does put himself on mighty thin ice in the interests of justice and to save a friend's life. He asks for help from his former lover, Camryn Becket, herself a disgraced CIA agent who was too good at her job for the higher-ups' peace of mind. The two of them aren't even supposed to be in the same place, much less working together to solve a crime. But they're on the hunt regardless, doing anything they can to get information without running completely afoul of the local Special Agent in Charge, who's made it clear that he's looking for any reason to take Arneson out.
This book, y'all! From the opening chapter, I was hooked. The action kicks off immediately with the first dead body and no clues left behind, and the tension just keeps ramping up. I was about 66 percent through with the book when it looked like the whodunnit had finally been figured out. I thought it seemed a bit early, but maybe...? Nope. But if not this one, then who could get close enough to these women to engage them and then kill them with no real sign of a struggle? Lutterman did a great job of keeping me guessing.
I'm not going to give away the plot. I will say that this is a taut, tense, compelling read that kept me up way past my bedtime. There was no point where I felt like this book dragged. There are some descriptions of ugly, brutal acts, but they don't feel gratuitous. They serve to give you a peek into the killer's (or killers') minds. The characters, even seemingly minor ones, are integral to the story and well-developed.
And when that penny finally drops, may you be as surprised as I was! The ending has me hoping we'll see more of Kevin Arneson in future books, and Incel deserves a place on your summer reading list.