Arnie Milhouse found the power. As an abused husband and submissive person, he walks into a convenience store during a robbery. Fearing for his life, he kills the robber and, reveling in his newfound power, he kills the clerk. This begins a thirteen year spree with mutilated bodies left in his wake. Allison Davenport, a free-lance photographer with an assignment in Annapolis, Md., meets Arnie in a tavern, seemingly by chance. They strike up a conversation, making a dinner date for the next evening. Both are preparing the opening moves to their various agendas: Arnie has found a new victim and Allison has found the subject of her hunt. In reality, she is Allison Mc Neil of the FBI tracking what her colleagues at the bureau think is a financial criminal. Allison knows the truth about Arnie, yet has kept that secret from them. The two of them begin a lethal chess game where one or both of them may not survive.
KILLER WITHIN is a mystery where secrets cover the motives of both the killer and his pursuer. As the plot progresses, layers of deception are stripped away to reveal the truth about Allison as well as Arnie. The sub plot involving the US Naval Academy, especially with its relation to Allison’s past trauma, is well integrated into the action and moves the plot forward to its climax on Chesapeake Bay. Arnie and Allison’s characters are well crafted and complex, especially in the first half of the novel. Richard, Allison’s boss and former lover, seems a bit too much of a caricature and his “follow the rules” consistency breaks down when he sets up a surveillance on Arnie. However, at this point the action picks up leading to his near escape and Allison’s struggle against both Arnie and nature to bring him to justice.
KILLER WITHIN is an absorbing study of both a killer’s mind as well as his pursuer’s motivation. The cat-and-mouse game between the two main characters moves to its conclusion with the outcome unclear until the last pages.
Reviewed by Ed Bennett for IndieReader.