[Mike McCabe 01] • Mike McCabe - 01 - the Cutting

From a formidable new voice in suspense fiction comes an edge-of-the-seat

story of a homicide detective on the trail of a killer, who slays with

exacting precision, and who harbors a terrifying motive

Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe moved from New York City to Portland,

Maine, to escape a dark past: both the ex-wife who'd left him for an

investment banker, and the tragic death of his brother, a hero cop gone

bad. He sought to raise his young daughter away from the violence of the

big city . . . so he's unprepared for the horrific killer he discovers,

whose bloody trail may lead to Portland's social elite.

Early on a September evening, the mutilated body of a pretty teenaged

girl, a high school soccer star, is found dumped in a scrap-metal yard.

She had been viciously assaulted, but her heart had been cut out of her

chest with surgical precision. The very same day a young businesswoman,

also a blonde and an athlete, was abducted as she jogged through the

streets of the city's west end. McCabe suspects both crimes are the work

of the same man---a killer who's targeting the young---who is clearly

well-versed in complex surgical procedures, and who may have struck

before. Just as the investigation is beginning, McCabe's ex-wife

reemerges, suddenly determined to reclaim the daughter she heedlessly

abandoned years earlier.

With the help of his straight-talking (and, at times, alluring) partner,

Maggie Savage, McCabe begins a race against time to rescue the missing

woman and unmask a sadistic killer---before more lives are lost.

### From Publishers Weekly

Hayman's clichéd debut introduces Det. Sgt. Michael McCabe of the Portland, Maine, PD. A former NYPD detective, McCabe relocated to raise his 13-year-old daughter in a supposedly safer place and to escape a nasty divorce. When a young woman disappears soon after the body of a 16-year-old girl turns up in a scrap yard with her heart neatly cut out, McCabe fears a serial killer is on the loose. McCabe's investigation leads him and his partner, Det. Maggie Savage, to a prominent cardiac surgeon specializing in transplants. Racing against the clock even as he uncovers more victims, McCabe is determined to find the killer and rescue the missing woman before time runs out. Hayman treads the well-worn path of troubled cop vs. serial killer without injecting new life into either the hero or the villain. Even thriller fans unfamiliar with the predecessors from whom Hayman borrows will figure out the mystery long before McCabe. *(July)* Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

### From Booklist

When a missing 16-year-old is found with her nude body showing signs of torture and her heart removed with surgical precision while she was still alive, the violence of the crime has Portland, Maine, detective sergeant Mike McCabe recalling his days with the NYPD. The case takes on greater urgency with the abduction of another women and the discovery of other similar victims, all young, blond, and athletic. While local cardiac surgeon Philip Spencer assures McCabe that such hearts would not be viable transplant organs, the doctor’s lying and arrogance make him a prime suspect. As McCabe and partner Maggie Savage work tirelessly on the case, a French medical assistant and a former Miami reporter provide breakthrough information, and Spencer’s close friends from medical school come under scrutiny. First-novelist Hayman ratchets up the tension in this engrossing account of a deviously motivated psychopathic serial killer; if some aspects of the crimes strain credulity, it hardly matters, given the thrill of the ride. --Michele Leber