Ediciones B 2012

“The return of Katzenbach at his best.”

“A shocking thriller—a deadly duel between a psychopathic writer and his three victims.”

“A chilling tale that shows how a killer meticulously plans the murder of three women—and how they try to escape his hunt.”

Just a few kilometers apart, three women who don’t know each other live their lives. Redhead One is a single doctor nearing fifty; Redhead Two is a schoolteacher in her thirties; Redhead Three is a seventeen-year-old student. All three are vulnerable. All three are the target of a psychopath obsessed with proving to the world who he really is. Now, as he approaches the end of his life, he feels compelled to execute his final masterpiece—murders that will be studied at universities, talked about for decades. Perfect crimes.

The killer tells the three women he is going to kill them. They don’t know when, how, or where. They only know he is out there, closer every day. That he knows everything about them. That he has been following them for months. And now he is about to begin a terrifying psychological siege that will push them step by step toward death.

Like swimmers surrounded by sharks, they don’t know if the danger is ahead or behind, near or far, if they should keep moving or stay still, if they should join forces or act separately… They have only two choices: hide and wait, or fight and try to outsmart their predator. Will the three women manage to rewrite the end of the story, or will they be devoured by their worst nightmare?

“One fine day, Little Red Riding Hood decided to carry a basket of delicious food to her dear grandmother, who lived on the other side of a dense, dark forest…”

You’ve surely heard this story as a child. But you were probably told the gentler version: the one where the grandmother hides in the wardrobe and Red Riding Hood escapes becoming the wolf’s next meal thanks to the arrival of a brave hunter with an axe. In that version, everyone ends up “happily ever after.”

But that wasn’t how the original story ended. Its outcome was very different—and far darker. For years it has been the subject of analysis by academics and psychologists.

You’d be wise to keep that in mind in the weeks ahead.

You don’t know me, but I know you.

There are three of you. I’ve decided to call you:

Redhead One
Redhead Two
Redhead Three

I know all three of you are lost in the forest.
And just like the little girl in the tale, you have been chosen to die.