Snuff Tag 9 — Jude Hardin

Nicholas Colt's career as a lead guitarist ended with a crushed hand, and his career as a licensed private investigator ended with a narcotics conviction. Since then, he's had some luck making money under the table as a “security consultant.” But good luck has a habit of going bad for Colt. Like when he takes the case of an affluent young accountant who has received a threatening letter -- a mandate to come and play an ultraviolent video game called Snuff Tag 9.

Colt figures the letter is a scam, but a psychotic four-hundred- pound billionaire known only as Freeze quickly proves him wrong. Freeze, it seems, is populating his version of the game with real people.

Kidnapped and outfitted with a device that will stop his heart if he refuses to join in, Colt finds himself deep in the Okefenokee Swamp hunting -- and being hunted by -- eight people he has never met, has nothing against…and must kill to survive.