Back from the dead. That's how it feels for Nan Vining--a Pasadena homicide cop, a struggling single mother, and a woman determined to find the brutal madman who left her for dead a year ago. Now, in Dianne Emley's brilliant new thriller, Nan Vining must face the truth: her attacker is still out there and he's killed at least three other women.

She has given a name to her unknown assailant: T. B. Mann--The Bad Man. On the job, Nan breaks rules and steals evidence, building a case file based on the dead certainty that T. B. Mann is obsessed with women who wear uniforms or carry guns, that he hunts them and kills them, then adorns them with a pearl necklace.

At the crime scene of her official assignment, the murder of an ex-con in a clown suit, Nan spots a graffiti tag and is sure, against all reason, that T. B. Mann was there, too. But she is fearful to share her suspicions.

Further complicating matters is Nan's developing relationship with Detective Jim Kissick. In the grip of her secret obsession, she knows that opening her heart means losing control.

Within this sprawling panorama T. B. Mann reemerges, bringing Nan to the sudden, horrifying realization that her killer has baited the perfect trap.
Smart and gut-wrenching, deeply felt and passionate, The Deepest Cut startles and astounds from the first page to the last.

From the Hardcover edition.

Montaña de Oro State Park
Central California Coast
Eight years ago

This was his chance to get it right. he was nervous but confident. This was good. No . . . great. Perfect. A fresh start. A new day. The first time had been a bloody mess. Of course, it counted. It had been everything--which was part of the problem. He'd been careless. He wouldn't do that again. Because he'd learned that killing is never as easy as you hope, but it's sooo worth taking the time and trouble to do it with style. Practice makes perfect. Here he was and here she was. Take two.

Looking up at California State Park Ranger Marilu Feathers, he let a smile tickle his lips and said, "Where there's smoke, there's fire."

He pulled one corner of his mouth higher than the other, crafting what was intended to be a rakish grin. She'd know that he knew it was a corny old saying, and that would show his mastery of the situation. While he was at it, he arched an eyebrow, aiming to look clever, disarming, maybe even handsome. He was rewarded. She smiled. She was flirting with him.

In no mood, Feathers smirked. It was Christmas Eve and this clown was about to make her late to dinner at her parents' house with her brother and his family. Her young niece and nephew wouldn't care, but her sister-in-law would find it an opportunity to remind single, childless, thirty-something Feathers about the importance of schedules for children.

She'd taken her horse instead of the Jeep to do one last patrol of the nearly deserted sandspit, ringing in the holiday and a well-earned break with a sunset gallop. And now this.

The stranger looked Feathers over with a measure of scrutiny and delight, as if examining a long-sought-after rare book found by chance at a yard sale. He had watched in awe from the moment she'd appeared with Gypsy, her big roan mare, from the pass-through between the dunes and had begun galloping across the sand. She scattered spindly-legged sandpipers and inky black cormorants feeding in the surf while brown pelicans and Western gulls circled above, the gulls calling, "Kuk, kuk, kuk."

He had known she'd take Gypsy from the stable behind the dunes, would go down the Jeep path onto the spit, and would turn right, toward the Rock. He had known exactly where to position himself. She often rode at sunset, when the sandspit was quiet, but not always. He'd spent disappointing hours, primed, waiting, only to return home unfulfilled. While frustrating, waiting taught him discipline, which he knew he sorely needed. Now, at last, his reward. His heart had thrilled with each beat of the horse's hooves upon the sand.

He felt his emotions running away with him and--just as Feathers had reined in her horse--he seized command of himself. His reward was near. His memories of this moment would keep it alive and fresh forever. All he had to do was hold on. Hold on.

Feathers pulled up her horse beside the makeshift barrier and managed an insincere "Good evening, sir," and then the admonishment. "You're in the snowy plover restricted habitat. You can't be here, let alone have a campfire."

He knew that. Who could miss the miles of yellow nylon rope on four-foot metal stakes marked with signs, some drawn by schoolchil?dren, "Share the beach!" "We love the snowy plover!" He thought the stupid bird deserved to go extinct, but he knew that if she could Ranger Feathers would sit on their nests--mere shallows in the sand, the lazy birds. He'd not only purposefully gone into the restricted habitat, he'd built a fire with driftwood. Brilliant. Did he know how to push her buttons, or what?

Standing near him now, she was a sight to behold, tall in the...

 

"Hurtles the reader down a razor's edge of suspense to the final shattering end."

 

"A great read . . . The First Cut should immediately establish Dianne Emley in the front ranks of thriller writers."

 

"Emley is a writer to watch."

 

"Cut to the Quick's razor-sharp pacing and twisted plot kept me on the edge of my chair from the first page to the last."

 

"Emley sets a cracking pace."

 

Dianne Emley gained critical acclaim for the previous books in the Nan Vining series, The First Cut, a Los Angeles Times bestseller, and Cut to the Quick. She lives in Pasadena, California, with her husband, Charlie.

www.DianneEmley.com

From the Hardcover...