OPENING MOVES

In The Bowers Files novels, FBI Special Agent Patrick Bowers has stopped some of the most vicious serial killers ever imagined. Now, in the fifth exciting installment, author Steven James takes readers back to Bowers’s terrifying beginning.

Milwaukee, 1995. In a city still reeling from the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, a woman’s body is found with the lungs removed. Local cops think a Dahmer copycat is on the loose. But Patrick Bowers, working as a homicide detective for the Milwaukee Police Department, sees from the timing and location of the crime that this is not a copycat at all, but a killer with an entirely different agenda. As he pursues the madman using his unique skills and ice-cold logic, Bowers finds himself thinking more and more like his demented prey. The problem is that the more he understands the killer’s mind, the more his own thoughts are being warped. And if he’s not careful he may not be able to recover his mind—or survive the case.

Critically acclaimed author Steven James has penned 30+ books spanning the genres of psychological thrillers, dramas,YA fantasy, and more. Steven has received wide critical acclaim for his work, including four Storytelling World Honor awards, two Publishers Weekly starred reviews, and 2009 & 2011 Christy Awards for best suspense. His thriller, The Bishop, was named both Suspense Magazine's and The Christian Manifesto's 2010 Book of the Year and won an RT Book Reviews and an INSPY award in the categories of suspense/mystery. Library Journal listed his latest action thriller The Queen as one of the best novels of 2011. His first thriller The Pawn was optioned by ABC Studios in 2010. Steven earned a Master's Degree in Storytelling from ETSU in 1997 and is an active member of International Thriller Writers, The Authors Guild, Mystery Writers of America, and International Association of Crime Writers. Steven serves as a contributing editor to Writer's Digest. He appears regularly as a keynote speaker at events throughout North America.