Surprising and compelling this powerfully written novel is a terrifyingly vivid rendering inside the mind of a serial killer. Meet Joe. He's a nice guy out to catch a copycat killer. The one copying himself. Joe is in control of everything in his simple life, including both his day job at the police department and his 'night work'. He remembers to feed his fish twice a day and visit his mother at least once a week, although he occasionally peppers her coffee with rat poison. He is not bothered by the reports of The Christchurch Carver, who, they say, murdered seven women. Joe knows the carver has only killed six women. He knows that for a fact. And Joe is going to find that copy - cat killer, punish him for the one and then frame him for the other six. It's a perfect plan because he already knows he can outwit the police. All he has to do now is take care of all the women who keep getting in his way - his domineering mother for one. Then there is Sally, the maintenance worker who sees him as a replacement for her dead brother, and the mysterious Melissa, the only woman to have ever understood him, but whose fantasies of blackmail and torture no longer have any place in Joe's investigation...