A vicious serial killer has struck again. FBI Special Agent Victoria Santos is tracking the string of gruesome murders from New York to San Francisco, from Miami to Oregon. Her only lead: the distinct savagery of the slayings, signed with the killer's own brand of barbarism.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Miami Tribune reporter Mike Posten has covered thousands of horrible crimes in his rough-and-tumble career. But nothing has prepared him for an anonymous call from a mysterious stranger who claims his mind works so much like the killer's that he can actually predict the next attack time, place, victim. The only catch is, the man wants money. A lot of it.

It could be the scoop of Mike's career or the end of it. Haunted by a failing marriage and a back-stabbing rival in the Tribune newsroom, Mike isn't sure if the caller is the killer or the evil genius he claims to be, and he wonders which would be worse. He has never paid for a story, and he doesn't intend to start now unless it could help stop a killer. When the caller's grisly predictions prove true, Mike secretly contacts the FBI, and Victoria targets his informant as the breakthrough she's been waiting for. At once a strange alliance and classic struggle between the FBI and the press, Mike and Victoria form the front line of attack, with Mike as the go-between for the informant and the feds: checkbook journalism at its deadliest.

As FBI top brass become convinced that the informant is the killer, Mike and Victoria search for the elusive element that links the victims to a true psychopath. Soon their own lives are in danger, and they come face-to-face with the reason he kills without a conscience and why it may be impossible to stop him.

The Informant pits instinct, experience, and morality against an ingenious criminal mind for a nonstop story that starts with murder in a small Georgia town and reaches a pulse-pounding climax aboard a packed cruise ship sailing the Caribbean.

Critical Praise

"A breathlessly scary, unpredictable thriller, extravagantly plotted. Grippando has produced a work that will deserve its place on bestseller lists." -- Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel

"Grippando writes with the authenticity of an insider. . . . A thoroughly convincing edge-of-your-seat thriller." -- John Douglas, former chief of the FBI's Investigative Support Unit, and New York Times bestselling author of Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit

"Intriguing . . . Grippando handles this unusual [plot] with ease." -- Chicago Tribune

"It's not only titillating, but terrifying -- indeed, terrorizing." -- Naples Daily News (FL)

"Keeps you tearing through the pages." -- Kirkus Reviews