Southern California homicide detective Roger Tejeda has "the gift" - a sixth sense for catching the most elusive kind of criminal, the serial killer. But Lt. Tejeda is now working with a handicap: half a mind. His last case left him with a skull fracture, lingering blackouts, and lapses of memory, all of which make it that much harder to figure out who would send him a gift box holding a severed head.

With the help of his beautiful lover, Kate Teague, Lt. Tejeda follows a bloody trail left by a sex killer--one that leads terrifyingly close to the beachfront mansion heiress Kate calls home. But it's Kate's daring plan to net the slippery and very dangerous psycho that takes her and Tejeda into the dark insider's circle of rough sex and deadly acts of passion ...and perhaps fatally close to the evil men do when they get their thrills from terror.