Under the Beetle's Cellar

The author and heroine of The RedScream return in a novel so terrifying, sofilled with squirming suspense, it's bound for thebestseller lists. When KirkusReviews greeted Mary Willis Walker's last book,The Red Scream, with welcometo the big time, they weren't kidding. Thatnovel established Walker as an author with the kind of clout that sets publishers' mouthswatering (The PhiladelphiaInquirer). And now she has done it again, with anunforgettable tale ripped from the headlines andmore terrifying than our worst nightmares. Kidnappedby a cult of religious fanatics, an Austin schoolbus driver and eleven of his young charges havebeen held underground at the group's highlyfortified compound for forty-six days. While a team offederal negotiators begins to lose all hope ofrescuing the hostages, crime reporter Molly Cates setsoutto discover everything she can about the cult'siron-willed leader, Samuel Mordecai. And asthe clock ticks inexorably, she takes the role ofClarisse Starling opposite Mordecai's Hannibal Lecter,engaging in a psychological confrontation asharrowing as any in The Silence OfThe Lambs. Tough, terrifying, and relentlesslyheart-wrenching, this is a novel whose images no reader willever forget.


From the Paperback edition.