The award-winning Home Killings , Marcos M. Villatoro’s first Romilia Chacón novel, won dazzling acclaim for its fusion of character, suspense, and a gripping police procedural swirling around a fiery Latina detective. Now, in a new novel filled with the same remarkable precision and power, Romilia Chacón turns back to the reason she became a cop in the first place: to hunt for the sadist who took her sister’s life–and has kept on killing ever since.

He is known as the Whisperer for the cryptic messages he leaves at his horrific crime scenes. But Detective Romilia Chacón can hear him loud and clear. Still haunted by the death of her beloved sister, Romilia begins to dig into the case on her own time and soon finds help she doesn’t want. A seductive international drug lord is obsessed with her and seems to know more about the case than anyone inside law enforcement. But neither an outlaw’s unbridled power nor a cop’s persistence can untangle the web of illusion surrounding the man they seek. For this killer is living at the center of his own brilliant hell–and he’s already decided who will join him next.…