The author of the Alex Cross mysteries ("Kiss the Girls", "Along Came a Spider") also writes the Women's Murder Club series which features the combined talents of 3 high-achieving female crime fighters and one newspaper reporter in San Francisco. In "3rd Degree", he has the audacity to kill one of them off at the hands of a political terrorist ring -- one that executes their human targets with bombs and ricin poison.

The killer behind it contacts chief investigator, detective Lindsay Boxer, declaring his war on the powered classes in which he'll kill every 3 days, with a planned meeting of a G-8 economic summit as the ultimate object for destruction.

Lindsey is the dual-natured heroine, soft and vulnerable inside; tough and relentless on the job. She's as ready to put her life on the line by attacking an assailant as she is about to crumble needfully into a relationship after years of building an emotional wall. With her intuitive tenacity she identifies the ring of smug sociopaths as reborn 60s radicals and tries to end what seems an unstoppable force of evil. But clues to real names and locations come when it's almost too late.