First published 2009
Steve Dark leads a secret investigations unit that tracks the world's most dangerous murderers. Law enforcement classifies killers on a twenty-five level scale, from opportunistic amateurs at Level 1 to methodical torture-murderers at Level 25. Dark's team operates outside official channels, pursuing criminals too extreme for conventional police work. Now they face something unprecedented. A killer known as Sqweegel defies every existing classification system. This predator selects victims without pattern or limitation. His methods know no boundaries. Dark and his unnamed unit must create an entirely new category to contain this threat: Level 26. As the investigation unfolds, Dark confronts a criminal who represents evolution in human evil. The hunt becomes personal when traditional investigative approaches fail against an adversary who rewrites the rules of murder. Dark must push beyond his own limits to stop someone who has transcended every known framework for understanding killers.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, dark
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: cat-and-mouse, high-stakes, personal-vendetta
406 pages · Hardcover · Dutton
Content warnings: graphic-violence, murder, violence