Frank Corso

Frank Corso is a pariah - a journalist once vilified for making up "facts" on a major crime story. Yet slow, sheltered Leanne Samples trusts no one but Corso to tell the world that her courtroom testimony that put Walter Leroy "Trashman" Himes on Death Row was a lie. Convicted of the savage slaying of eight Seattle women, Himes is only six days from execution, unless Frank Corso and outcast photographer Meg Dougherty into a struggle that goes far beyond right, wrong, truth, and justice.

The high-profile, tight-security trial of a thug charged with 63 counts of murder has become a media-circus...and a real nightmare for a loner type like Frank Corso, the only writer allowed to observe the proceedings. And that's before his close friend, photojournalist Meg Dougherty, is rushed to Intensive Care after a terrifying and brutal attack.

The rules never mattered much to true-crime writer Frank Corso. So when the Texas police release a warrant with his name on it, he runs. Accompanied by former lover Meg Dougherty, Corso heads straight into a furious blizzard that sends his car crashing to the bottom of an icy hill. The pair are forced to seek shelter in an abandoned house. But in their retreat, Corso and Meg make a horrific discovery: the grisly remains of Eldred Holmes and his family.

Something has been let loose in the city: an airborne horror that leaves a tunnel full of corpses below the streets of Seattle, just as experts from 50 nations are gathering downtown for an international symposium on chemical and biological weapons. As the city grinds to a halt, true-crime author Frank Corso is evacuated from his friend Meg Dougherty's first photographic exhibition. All too soon, he unwittingly establishes himself as a prime suspect in this deadly conspiracy.

Meza Azul Correctional Facility in Arizona is designed to hold the worst criminals. So it is with mixed horror and disbelief that Governor James Blaine discovers "lifer" Timothy Driver has managed to take control of the prison.

Bestselling author Frank Corso is at first reluctant to investigate a four-year-old unsolved murder. Then he endures two attacks on his life and his curiosity is quickly sharpened. Clearly someone still has something to hide.