Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Crime & mystery fiction

THROUGH THE CRACKS

Barbara Fister

In this sequel to IN THE WIND (Minotaur, 2008), Anni Koskinen, former police detective-turned-private investigator, is hired to solve a twenty-year-old crime. She discovers an unsettling pattern of rape victims that suggests that a serial rapist has been on the loose and terrorizing women in Chicago for decades. And what's equally horrifying is that the police and the criminal justice system may have been purposefully ignoring these brutal crimes.

Twenty years after the Lincoln Park Rapist terrorized Chicago, private investigator Anni Koskinen is hired to find the real criminal. At the time, the police swiftly arrested a man for the crime, but the rape victim now believes that she had wrongfully imprisoned an innocent man. The victim wants to know who was really responsible for the crime that scarred her life and presents evidence that the same serial rapist may still be at work, attacking women with ferocious anger Tracking this trail of young women whose similar rapes and brutal beatings have slipped through the cracks, Anni discovers that corrupt forces within the criminal justice system may be working against her. As Anni tunnels after what was thought to be dead ends, she digs closer towards a deadly truth. Barbara Fister is an academic librarian at a liberal arts college. In her writing, she explores the role of anxiety in social issues. In On Edge, a community embraces oversimplified explanations for evil; in In the Wind, anxiety becomes a device for the suppression of dissent.

Available products
Book Published 2010-05-01 by St. Martin's Minotaur

Comments

"Barbara Fister is the heir apparent to Sara Paretsky. In the Wind is an intriguing mystery, filled with great characters, an interesting and needed perspective on the city of Chicago, and a strong grounding in the politics and history of the past thirty years. Read it. You'll love it."

"Chicago comes to life in this bold, thought-provoking, unabashedly political mystery."

"Fister's protagonist is Anni Koskinen, who spent 10 years as a Chicago police officer before being forced out because she testified against rogue colleagues. Koskinen is now a private investigator with a big heart, lots of courage and a penchant for danger.... "Fister is a master at plotting and pacing.... she ties the subplots together skillfully, leaving no questions unaddressed. The identity of the serial rapist might come as a surprise to most readers, but at least a few might pick up on Fister's subtle clues. As in so many first-rate mystery novels, part of the fascination derives from the procedural aspects... Fister employs her real-life inspirations well to create a believable fictional world that I hope she allows us to visit again."