by L. J. Ross

Few people understand as well as forensic psychologist Alexander Gregory how normal a murderer can seem.

Professionally, he works with mentally ill criminals at London’s Southmoor Hospital. His personal experiences with madness? He keeps those well hidden.

When the police in a small Irish town need a psychological profile on the killer of a young mother, Alex accepts the task reluctantly.

What overcomes his reluctance is the thought of victim Claire Kelly’s daughter who came home from swimming practice to find her dead mother posed on her bed with a teddy bear under one arm and an open story book in the other.

With few clues and no witnesses, the police believe the killing to be the random act of a stranger.

But as Alex reviews the clues and the scene, he realizes it had to be someone familiar to Claire and her neighbors. Someone who could walk the neighborhood and into the house without arousing suspicion.

That hardly narrows the suspects: from the local priest who survived a childhood in a notorious orphanage to Garda Detective Inspector Niall Byrne, who saw his father assassinated by the IRA and won’t say where he was the day of the murder to an adulterous school master.

By day, Alex sifts through the facts and the suspects: man or woman? Priest or policeman? Lover or husband? Jealous neighbor or secret enemy? By night, he suffers terrifying nightmares that he will fail to protect the vulnerable.

Author L. J. Ross has created a tightly plotted mystery, mixing red herrings and critical clues at every turn. In Alex, she has created a detective with as many secrets as the killer, and a killer who can move freely around town without a second glance.

IMPOSTER (2019) was followed by:

• HYSTERIA (2019). Alex is called in by the French police during Paris fashion week. Some of the world’s most beautiful women are turning up dead, their faces slashed in frenzied attacks. One, however, has survived but is too traumatized to talk.
• BEDLAM (2020). Alex is called in for a consultation by the FBI, when the wife of a notorious criminal is admitted to a private psychiatric hospital and can no longer testify in his upcoming trial.

About the Author: LJ Ross

Louise Ross is the author of the bestselling Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Ryan mystery series, which opens with HOLY ISLAND (2015). She is known for atmospherical novels and thrillers.

Born and raised in Northumberland, she did undergraduate and graduate degrees in law at King’s College London. There she met her husband. She continued her studies in Paris and Florence.

During most of her twenties, she worked as a lawyer in London. When her son was born, she wrote the first draft of HOLY ISLAND, inspired by the atmospheric beauty of Lindisfarne, a tidal island in north eastern England, which she was familiar with from childhood.

With the success of HOLY ISLAND, she continued the series with each book featuring a location in Northumberland, County Durham and Newcastle.

In 2019, she launched the Alexander Gregory series which features a forensic psychologist known for his ability to step inside pathological minds to help solve mysteries.