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by Ursula Archer
A woman's corpse is discovered in a meadow. A strange combination of letters and numbers has been tattooed on the soles of her feet. Detective inspector Beatrice Kaspary from the local murder squad quickly identifies the digits as map coordinates. These lead to a series of gruesome discoveries as she and her colleague Florin Wenninger embark on a bloody trail – a modern-day scavenger hunt using GPS navigation devices to locate hidden caches.
The "owner" of these unofficial, unpublished geocaches is a highly calculating and elusive fiend who leaves his victims' body-parts sealed in plastic bags, complete with riddles that culminate in a five-stage plot. Kaspary herself becomes an unwilling pawn in the perpetrator's game of cat and mouse as she risks all to uncover the motives behind the murderer's actions.
Five is definitely not a book for the faint-hearted, but it delivers great suspense, unexpected plot twists, and multi-dimensional characters.
"Austrian children's book author Archer makes her U.S. debut with her first adult novel, a riveting mystery that centers on geocaching, the hunt for hidden objects using only a GPS device….The suspense builds until the shocking climax." - Publishers Weekly
"Archer's very effective procedural, with some clever twists (and gruesome crimes), also explores the intriguingly odd world of geocaching, and those who inhabit it. While some readers may have things figured out before the end, the journey is well worth it." - Library Journal
"Ursula Archer takes you on a terrifying journey. This is a superior psychological thriller with twists at every level." – Karin Slaughter
"A deliciously dark and terrifying cat-and-mouse thriller you won't be able to put down until the last page is read. Haunting." - Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of Dead Heat and Cold Snap
"Intriguing and gripping, I was hooked from the start and shocked by the end. A believable hero and a story cleverly told. I loved Five." - Neil White, author of Next to Die
"...a hugely entertaining hunt as gutsy Austrian detective Beatrice Kaspary is pitted against a very creepy killer. Compulsively readable." - The Sunday Mirror (UK)
This information about Five was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ursula Archer is a science journalist and an award-winning author of YA and children's books. Five is her first adult mystery. She lives in Vienna, Austria, with her family.
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