紐約時報暢銷作家Lisa Jackson 2008新作

The Doubleday Book Club & Rhapsody Book Club

讀書俱樂部評為首選好書

首印量300,000本

Kristi Bentz正在撰寫『真實犯罪』的相關書籍，她所需要的是找到一件大案子來使她成名。終於，在她回母校繼續完成學業，得知四名女子離奇失蹤的消息，當屍體找到時，全身血液已被抽乾，而謠傳四起這一切都是吸血鬼作祟。

Kristi Bentz不顧一切，堅持調查女子遇害的案件，卻發現原來母校有個邪教崇拜的秘密團體。為了寫作，她必須加入這個異教派來深入挖掘事實，沒想到卻不可自拔迷失的愈陷愈深。Kristi是否又是下一個膜拜儀式下的犧牲者 ??

Twenty-seven-year-old Kristi Bentz is lucky to be alive. Not many people her age have nearly died twice at the hands of a serial killer, and lived to tell about it.

Her dad, New Orleans detective, Rick Bentz, wants Kristi to stay in New Orleans and out of danger. But if anything, Kristi’s experiences have made her even more fascinated by the mind of the serial killer. She hasn’t given up her dream of being a true-crime writer–of exploring the darkest recesses of evil–and now she just may bet her chance.

Three girls have disappeared at All Saints College in less than two years. All three were “lost souls”–troubled, vulnerable girls with no one to care about them, no one to come looking if they disappeared. The police think they’re runaways, but Kristi senses there’s something that links them, something terrifying.

She decides to enroll, following their same steps. All Saints has changed a lot since Kristi was an undergraduate. The stodgy Catholic university has lured edgy new professor to its campus and gained a reputation for envelope-pushing, with classes like the very popular “The Influence of Vampirism in English Literature” and elaborately staged morality plays that feel more like the titillating entertainment of some underground club than religious spectacles. And there are whispers of a dark cult on campus whose members wear vials of blood around their necks and meet in secret chambers–rituals to which only the elite have access.

To find the truth, Kristi will need to become part of the cult’s inner circle, to learn their secrets, and play the part of the lost soul without losing herself in the process. It’s a dangerous path, and Kristi is skating on it’s knife-thin edge. The deeper she goes, the more Kristi begins to wonder if she is the hunter or the prey. She’s certain she’s being watched and followed–studied, even–as yet another girl disappears, and another. And when the bodies finally begin to surface–in ways that bring fear to the campus and terror to the hearts of even hardened cops like Detective Bentz and his partner Reuben Montoya–Kristi realizes with chilling clarity that she has underestimated her foe. She is playing a game with a killer more cunning and blood-thirsty than anyone can imagine, one who has personally selected her for membership in a cult of death from which there will be no escape.