October, 2011

Dear Readers:

Oh, how I wish I could write faster…

This letter is a bit overdue: I think I updated my website with a Dear Reader letter last July—as in July 2010. But I finally do have something to say, and some good news to relate!

It’s done.

My latest manuscript, that is. And the final chapter in the C.J. Townsend/ Cupid “thrillogy”. The story that began almost ten years ago with Retribution, and unfolded over Last Witness, now ends with The Redemption List.

Here’s a peek:

Assistant State Attorney Daria DeBianchi is a veteran prosecutor with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. Despite delicate features and a petite frame, she’s a veritable powerhouse in the courtroom, having successfully handled more than her fair share of brutal crimes over an illustrious five year career. Hoping to make her mark in the office, she’s sacrificed nights, weekends, and a social life to become Division Chief of a busy trial unit, in which she oversees three other ASAs, her own caseload of homicides and a court docket that at times can be overwhelming. When she’s approached by the Chief Assistant to the State Attorney to prosecute the horrific murder of a pretty University of Miami coed whose body was found buried in garbage in a dumpster, she knows right away that the case has the potential to generate headlines. And launch careers. She also knows that she’s being tested by the powers that be to see if she can handle a sensitive media case without creating a circus environment, a la Casey Anthony, in the process. With her sights set on the recently vacated position of Chief of the Sexual Battery Unit, she eagerly takes on The State of Florida v. Talbot Alastair Lunders. The accused is the handsome, young, playboy heir to a luxury bath and body products company. The evidence is circumstantial, but damning. Working alongside seasoned City of Miami homicide detective Manny “The Bear” Alvarez, Daria begins to build her case, the first order of which will be to make sure that the privileged Lunders—a flight risk with an influential family—doesn’t get out of jail before she has a chance to bring him to justice.

When the defendant’s mother approaches her and Manny after Talbot’s bond hearing with a strange video clip that has been anonymously emailed to her, the case takes a bizarre turn. In the 49 second clip, an unidentified woman who bears an unsettling resemblance to murder victim Holly Skoles, appears to be tortured and possibly killed in the same twisted manner as the UM coed. To Abigail Lunders, the existence of such a video and the fact that someone has forwarded it to her means only one thing—there’s another murderer at large, perhaps even a serial killer, who police should be looking for instead of focusing on her son and only child. Because according to the date/time stamp on the video, if the two crimes are, in fact, related and were committed by the same perpetrator, it was physically impossible for Talbot to be the masked assailant in the video.

While Daria is quick to dismiss any possible connection between the mysterious video and Holly Skole’s murder, Manny is definitely troubled. Unable to walk away from what could be the footage of an actual murder, he sets out to find the identity of the mystery woman in the video. What he discovers, though, is more than just the name of a NY murder victim whose brutal homicide has gone unsolved for years…

Nicole Vechio was just one day shy of her twenty-ninth birthday when she disappeared from a popular Manhattan nightclub back in 2006. Her nude, broken body was found days later in a construction pit on Long Island. She had been tortured, raped and strangled. 

After looking at the crime scene and autopsy photos and reviewing the NY police reports, there’s no denying a connection between the Miami murder of Holly Skole and the 2006 slaying of the pretty accountant from Forest Hills, Queens. That’s because the bodies of both Holly and Nicole bear an identical and disturbingly unique traumatic injury—they’ve each been branded with the distinct mark of the same killer. Complicating things even more, a preliminary investigation has uncovered more possible victims—unsolved homicides out of New Jersey and Florida over the past three years, victims whose tortured bodies also bear the same distinct branding. Spread over a lengthy period of time and involving different states and multiple jurisdictions, no one in law enforcement has put them together.

Until now. 

While still convinced that Talbot Lunders is responsible for Holly’s murder, Manny now knows, though, that the murders of Holly and Nicole are somehow related, even if their homicides involve different killers. It is that troubling realization that forces the hardened detective to think back on a desperate exchange he had long ago with Florida’s most infamous death row resident: William Rupert Bantling. In a jailhouse interview conducted years prior, the convicted serial killer nicknamed Cupid for the way he killed his victims, had tauntingly professed to know all about an underground human snuff club that operated not just in South Florida, but around the globe.  Bantling’s cryptic “confession” was rejected out of hand as the manipulative ramblings of a condemned man trying to save himself from a one-way trip to the gas chamber. Now, though, as Manny’s thoughts are filled with images of sadistic murder captured on videotape seemingly for another’s amusement, he is forced to look to the past and wonder if perhaps he made the wrong call…

After re-interviewing Bantling at the maximum security Florida State Prison, Manny’s worst fears about the existence of a club of voyeuristic predators are confirmed. To take it down, though, he will need to employ the assistance of one who is a monster himself. Cupid is the only one who knows the identity of the players in the club, some of whom are well-established in society, but revealing their names will come at a heavy price:  Bill Bantling wants his freedom.

With one of the world’s most brutal serial killers potentially headlining as star witness against a macabre organization of well-connected predators who feed via the internet, the case of The State vs. Talbot Alastair Lunders takes on new life at the State Attorney’s Office. And a new prosecutor. Desmond Collier is not just one of the office’s top prosecutors—he is the State Attorney’s right hand man. And he wants nothing more than to take down the voyeur’s club, member by member—at whatever the cost.

Blackstone’s famous commentary on the presumption of innocence serves as the cornerstone of American jurisprudence: “It is better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent suffer.” But Manny Alvarez knows all too well that William Bantling is no innocent. He also knows that if Cupid is released back into society, he will kill again. And his first target will most likely be the prosecutor who sent him to death row: former Major Crimes Assistant State Attorney C.J. Townsend. A woman with a haunting past, C.J. has long since left Miami—the breeding ground for too many dark secrets—far behind in her rearview mirror. But as Manny knows all too well, if someone wants to find you badly enough, they will. No matter how good you are at hiding.

United in cause, but surrounded by men and politicians who have their own interests at heart and headlines in sight, both prosecutor and detective will be forced to make the most difficult decision of their careers and answer a question that is not just theoretical fodder: Is it better to let one guilty man go free in order to capture dozens more?

Let go a vicious murderer to catch more murderers. Or execute him and be responsible for the future deaths of countless others. Either way, both Manny and Daria will be held accountable.

Either way, someone’s going to die.

I don’t have the particulars as to publishing dates just yet, or even final titles, as everything is always subject to change. But as soon as I do, I promise to post them.  Promise!

Thanks for the feedback, kind words and encouragement that so many of you have shot through to me via email! I really appreciate it! And thanks for having a lot of patience and loyalty. I know it takes me a while to write a thriller, but I hope you see why when you read my books. And I hope they keep you up all night turning pages.

All the best,

Jilliane

Upcoming Appearances:

TBA