Under the Beetle's Cellar

The author and heroine of "The Red Scream return in a novel so terrifying, so filled with squirming suspense, it's bound for the bestseller lists. When "Kirkus Reviews greeted Mary Willis Walker's last book, "The Red Scream, with "welcome to the big time," they weren't kidding. That novel established Walker as an author with "the kind of clout that sets publishers' mouths watering" ("The Philadelphia Inquirer). And now she has done it again, with an unforgettable tale ripped from the headlines and more terrifying than our worst nightmares. Kidnapped by a cult of religious fanatics, an Austin school bus driver and eleven of his young charges have been held underground at the group's highly fortified compound for forty-six days. While a team of federal negotiators begins to lose all hope of rescuing the hostages, crime reporter Molly Cates sets outto discover everything she can about the cult's iron-willed leader, Samuel Mordecai. And as the clock ticks inexorably, she takes the role of Clarisse Starling opposite Mordecai's Hannibal Lecter, engaging in a psychological confrontation as harrowing as any in "The Silence Of The Lambs. Tough, terrifying, and relentlessly heart-wrenching, this is a novel whose images no reader will ever forget.