Assuming the role of an ex-con, Trooper Frank Montaigne met with gambler Dewey Maddox and Maddox’s client on a darkened back road. The client, whose face was concealed by a black stocking, had murder in mind – the victim, a woman at the Summerton Hospital. That, however, was all Montaigne learned, for the unknown figure suddenly whipped out a gun and fired…

Hours later, that same gun was used on Maddox – this time with deadly results. Then, the body of a woman was found…and Wade Paris was left to determine the identity of a vicious killer whose motive was just one of the missing pieces to a baffling puzzle. Suspenseful, cunningly wrought, carefully documented, this is one of Benson’s best.