The Darkness Inside — John Rickards

Seven years ago, he was put away. They thought his victims were all dead. They were wrong.

Cody Williams was never charged with a string of child abductions and murders, but everyone knows he was the man behind them. While the remains of some of his victims have been found down the years, several are still out there, buried in the Massachusetts wilds. Now Cody's dying and the families want their children's bodies recovered. And he'll talk, but only to the man who put him away, former FBI agent Alex Rourke.

It's an unpleasant task for Rourke, but it gets far worse when he finds out that one of the victims might not have been killed at all, as he and everyone else had assumed. That she might still be alive, seven years later, still held captive. That Williams might not have acted alone. That by bringing down Cody, Alex gave the true villain free rein.

Alex gambled his soul on Cody's guilt when he was in the Bureau, and it looks like he bet wrong. Now he could buy the lost girl's freedom with his own by admitting his own crime, but will he? And if not, can he find her true captor and make up in some small way for the mistakes he made seven years ago, or will he - and she - die in the attempt?


PRAISE FOR JOHN RICKARDS:

"Rickards is a master of tension and pacing. In Rourke he has created a brilliant anti-hero lead on a par with John Connolly's Charlie Parker." - Crimespree Magazine

"Rickards is one author who doesn't pull punches." - Spinetingler

"Rickards is definitely one to watch." - Peter Robinson (Watching The Dark, Aftermath)