There are monsters in the world, and somebody has to get rid of them. Photographer Bess Grady spends her professional life shooting the results of their carnage with her camera, and CIA superhero Kaldak shoots the bad guys with his gun (that is, when he's not breaking their necks).

The dynamic duo meet in the small Mexican town of Tenajo where Bess has gone for a vacation and where Esteban, the villain, has just used a mutant form of anthrax to annihilate everyone in the village -- in a sort of beta test for a much larger hit in the US.

Kaldak helps Bess and an infant girl, the only other survivor of the Tenajo tragedy, to escape. Without telling Bess why he's helping her, Kaldak takes her to Atlanta, and then to New Orleans, to lure Esteban into the open. Sharing her apartment with him in the French Quarter, Bess finds that inside the assassin with the harsh face of a gargoyle lies David Gardiner, a tormented ex-doctor.

Johansen continues the trend of creating female leads whose physical strength and personal courage are as well developed as the moral fiber they share with heroines of old.

Reserved for Nou's VBB

RELEASE NOTES:

Sending to Bookgal23 who removed from VBB.

Thanks, Pyan! I'm really looking forward to reading this one. I'm fast becoming a fan of Iris Johansen.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Donated to a used bookstore.