Deceitful Above All Things — John White

Sgt. Arie Cross is a small town police detective haunted by his wife's death and plagued by a complex onslaught of shocking, unorthodox murders. As the series of strange deaths mount, Cross is confronted with a killer who fits no known psychological profile and whose motives are as obscure as his technical skill at rendering death by unusual means is artful. Dragged into the quagmire of small town southern politics, law enforcement turf wars and a developing attraction to an Assistant D.A. with secrets of her own, Cross pits his wits against a killer genius who never uses the same method of murder twice as he leaves a string of corpses across the county. The only clue Cross has to work with are tiny letters left on the foreheads of each victim as the killer spells out the origin of his anguish in a bloodbath of rage and vindication.