Someone is stealing children in Orange County, California. Twice in a few weeks little girls have gone missing, to be found shortly afterwards - bruised, dazed but otherwise unhurt - wearing clothes not their own. The kidnapper has given himself a name - The Horridus, a Latin name for snakes - that's as frightening as his behaviour.
Terry Naughton, head of the police force's Crimes Against Youth unit, knows that The Horridus will inevitably graduate to rape and murder. He's got to establish the connection between the victims fast. He's got to find The Horridus before he tips over the edge and starts to kill.
But Terry has an enemy, someone on the Force who's out to punish him, to destroy him. And if that takes the one man who can nail The Horridus off the case . . . so be it.
