The Third Victim

By Collin Wilcox

Stalked by a nighttime killer, a woman does whatever it takes to survive.

He calls himself Tarot. His first victim was a mother, killed while her daughter slept in the next room. His second was a truck-stop waitress, murdered -- like the first woman -- while she slept. After each one, he sent letters to the newspapers, boasting of his crimes and promising more to come. The third victim will die soon, he tells them. But first, she must be warned.

Joanna is drinking her morning coffee when she finds the switchblade on the floor, dropped through her newspaper slot in the middle of the night. Was it left there by a neighborhood prankster with a dark sense of humor? Or is this the warning of Tarot? Her husband has left her, making Joanna the sole caretaker for their son. Until Tarot is caught, neither of them can count on a good night's sleep.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784089016

Collin Wilcox

Collin Wilcox (1924–1996) was an American author of mystery fiction. Born in Detroit, he set most of his work in San Francisco, beginning with 1967’s The Black Door—a noir thriller starring a crime reporter with extrasensory perception. Under the pen name Carter Wick, he published several standalone mysteries including The Faceless Man (1975) and Dark House, Dark Road (1982), but he found his greatest success under his own name, with the celebrated Frank Hastings series. Hastings, a football player turned San Francisco homicide detective, made his debut in The Lonely Hunter (1969), and Wilcox continued to follow him for the rest of his career, publishing nearly two dozen novels in the series, which concludes with Calculated Risk (1995). Wilcox’s other best-known series stars Alan Bernhardt, a theatrical director with a habit of getting involved in behind-the-scenes mysteries. Bernhardt appeared in four more books after his introduction in 1988’s Bernhardt’s Edge.