Wolf Lake

Dave Gurney, a retired New York City homicide detective, faces a case that sounds impossible. Four strangers from different corners of the country, with no obvious link between them, each described the same nightmare: a bloodied dagger whose handle is carved into a wolf's head. Soon afterward, each of them is found dead with their wrists slashed, and each death looks like a suicide made with that same dagger.

Investigators quickly turn their attention to Richard Hammond, a psychologist whose hypnotherapy sessions draw controversy. He ran them at an eerie, aging inn in the Adirondacks called Wolf Lake Lodge, and every victim had visited him there shortly before dying. Gurney is not satisfied with the official explanation and starts his own inquiry. That decision draws him into danger from a cold-blooded killer, from local police, and from people at the darkest levels of the federal government. They are willing to go to any length to stop him, and their pressure extends to his wife, Madeleine.

With his own resources stretched to the limit, Gurney has to outthink an opponent more dangerous than any he has faced before. Wolf Lake is the newest entry in John Verdon's Dave Gurney series, following the detective's earlier cases.