The sole survivor of a homicidal sociopath's latest killing spree, Chyna Shepherd unwittingly discovers the identity of the murderer's intended next victim and confronts her own troubled past and overwhelming fear to protect herself and the life of a complete stranger from the ultimate evil.

Autorentext
Dean Koontz wurde 1945 in Pennsylvania geboren und lebt heute mit seiner Frau in Kalifornien. Seine zahlreichen Romane Thriller und Horrorromane wurden in 38 Sprachen übersetzt und sämtlich zu internationalen Bestsellern.

Klappentext
Past midnight, Chyna Shepherd, twenty- six, gazed out a moonlit window, unable to sleep on her first night in the Napa Valley home of her best friend's family. Instinct proves reliable. A murderous sociopath, Edgler Forman Vess, has entered the house, intent on killing everyone inside. A self-proclaimed "homicidal adventure," Vess lives only to satisfy all appetites as the arise, to immense himself in sensation, t o live without fear, remorse or limits, to live with intensity. Chyna is trapped in his deadly orbit.
Chyna is a survivor, toughened by a lifelong struggle for safety and self-respect. Now she will be tested as never before. At first her sole aim is to get out alive-until, by chance, she learns the identity of Vess's next intended victim, a faraway innocent only she can save. Driven by a newly discovered thirst for meaning beyond mere self-preservation, Chyna musters every inner resource she has to save an endangered girl--as moment by moment, the terrifying threat Edgler Foreman Vess intensifies.