The Chase

In 1906, a single man is robbing banks across the American West and killing every witness he leaves behind. He then disappears without a trace. The press has nicknamed him the Butcher Bandit, and when local lawmen fail to stop him, the federal government turns to Isaac Bell, a tall, lean, no-nonsense detective who has hunted thieves and killers from one coast to the other.

Bell has never faced an opponent like this one. His search carries him from Arizona into Colorado and finally to San Francisco, where the city is being torn apart by its great earthquake and fire. Along the way he crosses paths with a woman who may know who the killer really is. The bandit seems to enjoy the pursuit as a game, and as Bell studies him he comes to suspect that the newly coined psychological term "sociopath" might describe the man he is hunting.

Then the Butcher Bandit changes the rules and starts pursuing the detective instead. The hunter becomes the hunted, and Bell must rely on every skill he has just to stay alive, let alone catch his quarry.

The Chase is the first novel in Clive Cussler's Isaac Bell series. It combines a carefully built plot, large-scale action scenes set against a real historical disaster, and a pair of memorable villains.