Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Susan Ward, a newspaper reporter, figures she’s in for the scoop of her life when she assigned to profile Archie Sheridan, the head of a new serial killer task force. Archie, who has been on leave, was kidnapped, tortured, and near death when he was released by Gretchen Lowell, the Beauty Killer, two years ago. Lowell then went to prison for her crimes. Archie is now a shell of a man, hooked on pills, separated from his family, and still abnormally attached to Gretchen, whom he visits in prison. The new serial killer, dubbed the After School Strangler, has been kidnapping and murdering high school girls. Archie and the rest of the task force work to find the killer before he takes another life. All the while, Archie is haunted by his ordeal with Gretchen, which is recounted in graphic detail. Meanwhile, Susan becomes involved in ways she could not have possibly anticipated. Heartsick is a page turner that is reminiscent of The Silence of the Lambs and James Patterson’s Alex Cross novels because of the cat-and-mouse interplay between Archie and Gretchen and the depictions of violence.