Mortal Fear

by Greg Iles

Overview

A man with a secret life risks everything to clear his name in this “ingenious suspense thriller”(The New York Times Book Review) from the bestselling author of the Penn Cage series.

By day, Harper Cole trades commodities from his isolated home in the Mississippi Delta. By night he leads quite a different life, serving as a systems operator for an exclusive, annonymous erotic online service that caters to the rich and famous. But now a stranger has penetrated the network's state-of-the-art security, brutally murdering six celebrated female clients.

Falsely accused of these horrible crimes, Harper realizes there's only one way to lure the elusive madman offline and into the open. But as he enacts his daring plan, Harper will put everything and everyone he holds dear directly in the path of a brilliant, unstoppable killer...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101209066
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/01/1998
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	720
Sales rank:	25,089
File size:	734 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Greg Iles is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Penn Cage series. His novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide.

Hometown:

Natchez, Mississippi

Date of Birth:

1961

Place of Birth:

Stuttgart, Germany

Education:

B.A., University of Mississippi, 1983

Website:

http://www.gregiles.com

What People are Saying About This

Stephen Coonts

Greg Iles mixes action and suspense like a master.

Interviews

Before the live bn.com chat, Greg Iles agreed to answer some of our questions:

Q:  Who do you think is the most dynamic sports figure in history?

A:  I played sports in school, but I've never been a big sports fan in terms of watching games. I would say the most dynamic sports figure in history is Jim Thorpe, because he excelled in so many areas, and did so against great odds.

Q:  Do you have a "worst date" story? Would you tell us about it?

A:  I really don't have a worst date story. I was one of those people who never went out on dates unless he had a pretty good idea of compatibility from the start. Sort of like a lawyer not asking a question he doesn't know the answer to.

Q:  What books did you read as a child? Are they the same books you would read to your children?

A:  All the standards, Dr. Seuss, etc. My favorite was a book called Artie the Smartie, about a fish who managed to avoid every hook and trap, and kept from being caught. Perfect bible for a control freak. I probably won't read that book to my kids. I don't want them to be as uptight as I am when they grow up.

Q:  Do you like to cook?

A:  I do like to cook, but with a three-year-old and a two-month-old, I don't have much time for it.

Q:  What, to you, is the most important day of the year?

A:  The most important day of the year is when I finish whatever novel I'm working on, because that's the only day of the year when I relax at all. The problem with that is that day only comes once every two years!

Editorial Reviews

Mortal Fear is the story of a confidential sex-chat Internet newsgroup whose female members are gradually ceasing their participation. Although this disturbs founder Harper Cole, he doesn't give it too much thought until he learns that one of the group's more famous patrons has been brutally murdered. When Harper brings this to the attention of the police, he's surprised to discover that other long-term clients have also been horribly mutilated by an unknown madman. Now Cole is the primary suspect.

bn.com

Yet another serial killer stalks the Internet, this one courtesy of the talented Iles (Black Cross; Spandau Phoenix). When futures trader Harper Cole, who moonlights as the systems operator of an erotic online services called EROS, contacts the New Orleans police with information about the murder of celebrated author-and EROS subscriber-Karin Wheat, he immediately becomes the prime suspect in six other murders of EROS subscribers across the country. Also on the FBI's short list is Cole's eccentric friend and EROS colleague Miles Turner, who has dubbed the killer "Brahma." When Cole learns that the man he thought was Brahma was killed a year ago and that his online identity was stolen, a tense cat-and-mouse game commences. Professional hunters, like FBI psychiatric profiler Arthur Lenz, have the online tables turned on them time and again by an insanely brilliant murderer, and it's up to Cole to render justice. His digging leads to an exciting payoff when he goes online and poses as a potential victim, using as bait a secret that endangers the mother of his child, as well as his wife. While Cole's obsession over this guilty secret makes him less than likable at times, a nailbiting climax erases any doubts about his character-and any lingering questioning about the storytelling abilities of Iles, who here uses rich first-person narration and clever plotting to tell a sizzler of a thriller. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection; simultaneous Penguin Audio Book. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Successful commodities trader Harper Cole, who moonlights as a systems operator for computer sex-line EROS, works via computer from his home in Rain, Mississippi. When several EROS regulars suddenly disappear, Harper suspects foul play. His subsequent report to the police leads to a manhunt for a diabolical genius stalking his prey through the EROS network. When the FBI fails to capture the killer, Harper and friend Miles masquerade online as a potential victim, using the persona of Harper's sister-in-law as bait. Events escalate, and Harper and wife Dr. Drewe Cole become trapped in a personal struggle with the madman as his lethal attacks strike ever closer to home. Iles (Black Cross, LJ 11/15/94) scores high with this psychological thriller, easily accessible even to the computer-semiliterate. Though a bit too long, allowing for predictability at the end, it is still a chilling roller-coaster ride all the same. Recommended-Lori Dunn, Montgomery Cty. P.L., Troy, N.C.

Library Journal

An exuberant if somewhat hokey computer age serial-killer- thriller combines voyeuristic sex, Internet technobabble, tedious brain research, and southern-fried soap opera with a high degree of stay-up-all-night suspense.

Can you hate a novel that hacks off Anne Rice's head in the first chapter? Shaken by the news of the gory murder of New Orleans gothic horror novelist "Karin Wheat," Harper Cole, a self-made commodities trader and secret systems operator of EROS, an upscale Internet sex-chat service, knows that when Wheat wasn't pounding out bestselling terror tales, she was sharing her deepest erotic fantasies with other pseudonymous EROS members, six of whom have been mysteriously murdered within the last year. Fearing that the killer has gained access to EROS's secret files, Cole, who labors in obscurity from a home office hidden among Mississippi cotton fields, calls the New Orleans police and thus brings calamity on himself, his hardworking ob/gyn wife, his sexpot sister-in-law Erin, fatherly FBI forensic psychiatrist Arthur Lenz, and Cole's best friend, eccentric computer genius Miles Turner, creator of the EROS network. To lure the serial killer into revealing himself, Cole goes online pretending to be Erin, a tactic whose gender- switching eroticism is never realized as Iles (Black Cross, 1995, etc.) dumps a fishmonger's cart of red herrings in Cole's path. The villain is a typically brilliant homicidal übermensch who confounds the best efforts of the FBI but is so obsessed with computers, neurology, and obscure Hindu mythology that he can't help but talk online about how brilliant he is, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Iles counters this tedium with expertly detailed violence, computer lore, and predictable plotting that eventually brings the killer to Cole's doorstep, where he attempts to make Cole's wife his ultimate mate.

An overlong but relentlessly readable, by-the-numbers thriller whose up-to-the-minute technology will delight net surfers and Anne Rice fans.

Kirkus Reviews

An exuberant, relentlessly readable thriller with a high degree of stay-up-all night suspense.”—Kirkus Reviews

“The talented Iles uses rich first-person narration and clever plotting to tell a sizzler of a thriller.”—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher