Victims' Choice — Michael McClister

In Victim's Choice, the spectacular first novel by Michael McClister, Joe Colby is a successful TV newscaster and a recent widower. When he loses his two children to a rapist-murderer, there is little that can be done to assuage his crippling grief--even when the man is caught and put behind bars. With an unquenchable thirst for revenge, Joe develops a crazy scheme to get at him in prison. But the cops, particularly one he knows well, make him see reason.

At the same time, there begins in the city a series of murders of people close to convicted killers. A double homicide takes the lives of the wives of the lawyer who defended several of the criminals and the judge whose sentences were thought too lenient. A citywide panic begins as others receive threats and there are more murders. A famous crime fighter is soon enlisted to try and find the person who calls himself "The Avenger". The tension mounts until the climactic and utterly surprising ending.