by P. J. Tracy
First published 2004
Grace McBride runs Monkeewrench, a software company that designs violent computer games. When bodies start appearing around Minneapolis, she realizes someone is using one of her games as a murder manual. A young woman dies first, then a jogger. Detective Leo Magozzi investigates the killings and traces them back to McBride's company. As Grace and her team frantically analyze their own game to predict the next victim, Magozzi digs deeper into their backgrounds. He discovers that McBride and her colleagues were connected to another series of murders in Atlanta ten years earlier. Grace must confront her past while racing to stop a killer who knows her work better than she does. The investigation forces her to face questions about responsibility and guilt that she thought she had left behind.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, thriller
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, past-coming-back, race-against-time
Setting: Minneapolis
Period: Present Day, 10 Years Ago
461 pages · Hardcover · Roca Editorial
Content warnings: violence