Heffernan, William Ritual BS

excruciating’

RM

When a woman’s corpse is found behind the Metropolitan Museum in New York’s Central Park. Detective Stanislaus Rolk assumes ifsjust another grim urban statistic. But this murder is far from routine. The woman's head is missing and a cape-like section of skin has been removed from her shoulders. Even morę bizarre, the instrument used to perform this gruesome surgery seems to be of ancient origin. Rolk and his partner. Paul Devlin, tracę it to the Museum’s exhibit of ancient Toltec artifacts, and as they delve deeper they find themselves pulled into a dark world of ancient tribal rituals and murderous ceremonies.

As Rolk’s inyestigation proceeds, he falls in love with Kate Silverman, a young, frightened museum curator. But after a second murder victim is found in the park, Kate becomes a target and the stakes in this deadly gamę are raised as the insanely brilliant and obsessed murderer stalks the streets, waiting to claim his next victun for a ceremony of sacrifice to the Tolteos’ bloodthirsty god.

‘Gripping and dramatic... the susper Publishers Weekly ‘Highly reęommended’ Booklist

Ili WILLIAM HEFFEM