JACK OF SPADES

Just two years ago, the media turned Detective John Spader into a hero. He’d caught a twisted serial killer terrorizing Massachusetts, and the “Jack of Spades,” as the media dubbed Spader, was born. But when the murderer walked free on a technicality—free to kill again—the public turned on Spader.

Now a new serial killer is on the loose. He wears the silly, gap-toothed, grinning mask of Galaxo, Starboy Avenger!—a cartoon alien of unparalleled popularity with children. With the aid of voice-changing technology in the mask, he speaks in the alien’s cheerful, high-pitched, robotic vibrato, the same voice that delights millions of cartoon-watching kids every day. And he does all this while he maims, tortures, and murders his victims. With the body count rising, and the public’s fear growing, it’s up to the Jack of Spades to find the man beneath the mask and stop the killing. James Hankins lives in Massachusetts with his wife and two sons. He used to practice law. Before that he wrote screenplays. Now he writes books and helps raise his boys.