Drawn from actual profiles of serial killers, Ronald Munson has created a bone-chillingly accurate portrait of a psychopath's mind and methods. In the convictions that nothing human is truly alien to another human being, he offers a novel of three lives inextricably joined - cop, killer and potential victim - each dramatically different, yet linked by similarities they cannot escape, it is haunting tale of madness, murder and the many unexpected faces of love.

JOHN HAACK - aka the Jaguar - has studied everything from autopsy reports to Mayan mythology. Highly educated, charming and attractive to women, he keeps a part of his personality - like a snake in a box. He's killed twice before and left no clues. In twenty days it will be time again ti let out the snake...

JILL BRENNER is a young woman of striking vitality and intellectual keenness - a perfect target for the Jaguar. He's already invaded her home in quiet Cambridge, Massachusetts, but Jill refuses to be ruled by fear...

LIEUTENANT ERIC FIRECASTER, a Harvard graduate and former Congressional aide, has found his true calling in the grand principles and gritty details of police work. Now he's tracking a killer more devious and experienced than any he's ever known... and falling in love with the woman the killer has marked to die...