**See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. A deadly warning in a deadly game.**
In the bestselling tradition of *The Silence of the Lambs* comes *The Tower,* a novel of nail-biting suspense and heart-stopping terror played out in a psychological battle of wit, cunning, and pure evil between a diabolically clever killer and his determined hunter.
The Tower, nicknamed "Alcatraz II" by law enforcement officials, is infamous as the world's foremost airtight extreme maximum security prison. A futuristic building, it is located offshore of San Francisco, and built to be 100 percent escape-proof. The men who are condemned to spend the rest of their lives there are the most dangerous, violent offenders in the prison system -- men whose crimes have made it imperative that they be separated from society, from one another, and from hope -- forever.
Allander Atlasia, a psychopathic killer and himself the victim of a horrible sexual attack as a child, has been sentenced to the Tower for a series of gruesome crimes. But Atlasia manages to do the impossible -- he breaks out of the prison. He makes his way to the mainland and, armed with his own private agenda of hate and murder, begins his killing spree, intent on re-enacting and revenging the childhood tortures that turned him into a monster.
Jade Marlow is an ex-FBI agent who has been assigned to hunt down and capture Atlasia. A self-described "tracker," Marlow is relentless, fearless, and brilliant -- a loose cannon in a private struggle with his own demons. With a record of irrational behavior and violence, and a kind of genius for putting himself into the mind of a criminal predator that is itself a sort of madness, Marlow may just be the only man smart and diabolical enough to catch Atlasia.
Atlasia's victims are the unfortunate bystanders in this complex story of emotional and psychological horror, as they fall prey to this madman's twisted re-enactment of his own depraved past, as he rights the wrongs he feels have been visited upon him. His message to his pursuers is delivered in a particularly chilling manner, a literal realization of the old adage "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
Two men -- one a sinister, inventive, pitiless serial killer, the other a brilliant sleuth and hunter who bears his own heavy burden of dark secrets and impulses -- play out a deadly game against a background of increasingly brutal murders, in which there are no rules but kill or be killed.
Superbly written, ingeniously plotted, and enormously entertaining, *The Tower* marks the debut of a stunning new writer.
### From Publishers Weekly
The first several chapters of this psychological thriller offer a gripping rogue's gallery of psycho-killers and sociopathic behavior in a hellish setting from which no man escapes alive. The Tower is a maximum-security prison erected in San Francisco Bay to hold the nation's worst criminals. The worst of the worst, Allendar Atlasia (the weight of the novel is on his shoulders), executes a horrendous escape and creates a reign of terror in posh Bay Area neighborhoods. A purported genius, Atlasia delivers rhetorical gibberish in a highbrow diction aiming to mimic Hannibal Lecter's creepy intelligence but instead just sounding goofy. On Atlasia's trail is ex-FBI agent Jade Marlow (a man, despite his feminine moniker), who is teamed with the incredibly beautiful Agent Travers, who sports a blonde ponytail but is too hardboiled to have a given name. This arrangement is imposed by Wotan, the one-eyed, mysterious, fearless leader of the FBI. Jade is a Dirty Harry/Inspector Clouseau type, and while handsome and stout, he's a dull and dedicated misanthrope whose quite frequent cluelessness can be frustrating: a Phi Beta Kappa, he fails to recognize some of the most familiar lines of Shakespeare. He's bumbling as a super cop, setting up his own home as a target but posting no lookouts, losing his gun to his prey and stumbling into a tree when a pretty girl passes. Jade ultimately is the most inept yet conceited investigator since Maxwell Smart, although he seems to have superhuman strength even when the bones in his hips and legs are shattered. Though Travers gets short shrift in the chase, the reader might not miss her or any of the other crudely drawn secondary characters. This tale is mainly for those who enjoy graphic descriptions of grisly murders and who will believe the poorly delivered face-off between a monstrous criminal and his absurd nemesis.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
### From Library Journal
Just offshore from San Francisco stands the Tower, an ultra-maximum-security federal prison. When Allander Atlasia escapes from the Tower, he kills everyone there except one inmate. The FBI calls in former agent and tracker extraordinaire Jade Marlow, who profiles and hunts felons thought to be impossible to catch. The story follows Marlow's efforts as he tries to ensnare his prey and in the process loses most of his humanity. First novelist Hurwitz has created two very powerful characters in Atlasia and Marlow, showing their similarities as well as their obvious differences. Hurwitz also delves into Freudian psychology in a subplot that addresses Atlasia's drive to kill his father. The disappointment here is Special Agent Jennifer Travers, who instead of being a foil for Marlow ends up as his doormat. The violence of the killings will upset some, but for the most part this is for collections where thrillers are popular.--AJo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Hts.
*University Hts. P.L., OH*
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
**See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. A deadly warning in a deadly game.** In the bestselling tradition of *The Silence of the Lambs* comes *The Tower,* a novel of nail-biting suspense and heart-stopping terror played out in a psychological battle of wit, cunning, and pure evil between a diabolically clever killer and his determined hunter. The Tower, nicknamed "Alcatraz II" by law enforcement officials, is infamous as the world's foremost airtight extreme maximum security prison. A futuristic building, it is located offshore of San Francisco, and built to be 100 percent escape-proof. The men who are condemned to spend the rest of their lives there are the most dangerous, violent offenders in the prison system -- men whose crimes have made it imperative that they be separated from society, from one another, and from hope -- forever. Allander Atlasia, a psychopathic killer and himself the victim of a horrible sexual attack as a child, has been sentenced to the Tower for a series of gruesome crimes. But Atlasia manages to do the impossible -- he breaks out of the prison. He makes his way to the mainland and, armed with his own private agenda of hate and murder, begins his killing spree, intent on re-enacting and revenging the childhood tortures that turned him into a monster. Jade Marlow is an ex-FBI agent who has been assigned to hunt down and capture Atlasia. A self-described "tracker," Marlow is relentless, fearless, and brilliant -- a loose cannon in a private struggle with his own demons. With a record of irrational behavior and violence, and a kind of genius for putting himself into the mind of a criminal predator that is itself a sort of madness, Marlow may just be the only man smart and diabolical enough to catch Atlasia. Atlasia's victims are the unfortunate bystanders in this complex story of emotional and psychological horror, as they fall prey to this madman's twisted re-enactment of his own depraved past, as he rights the wrongs he feels have been visited upon him. His message to his pursuers is delivered in a particularly chilling manner, a literal realization of the old adage "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." Two men -- one a sinister, inventive, pitiless serial killer, the other a brilliant sleuth and hunter who bears his own heavy burden of dark secrets and impulses -- play out a deadly game against a background of increasingly brutal murders, in which there are no rules but kill or be killed. Superbly written, ingeniously plotted, and enormously entertaining, *The Tower* marks the debut of a stunning new writer. ### From Publishers Weekly The first several chapters of this psychological thriller offer a gripping rogue's gallery of psycho-killers and sociopathic behavior in a hellish setting from which no man escapes alive. The Tower is a maximum-security prison erected in San Francisco Bay to hold the nation's worst criminals. The worst of the worst, Allendar Atlasia (the weight of the novel is on his shoulders), executes a horrendous escape and creates a reign of terror in posh Bay Area neighborhoods. A purported genius, Atlasia delivers rhetorical gibberish in a highbrow diction aiming to mimic Hannibal Lecter's creepy intelligence but instead just sounding goofy. On Atlasia's trail is ex-FBI agent Jade Marlow (a man, despite his feminine moniker), who is teamed with the incredibly beautiful Agent Travers, who sports a blonde ponytail but is too hardboiled to have a given name. This arrangement is imposed by Wotan, the one-eyed, mysterious, fearless leader of the FBI. Jade is a Dirty Harry/Inspector Clouseau type, and while handsome and stout, he's a dull and dedicated misanthrope whose quite frequent cluelessness can be frustrating: a Phi Beta Kappa, he fails to recognize some of the most familiar lines of Shakespeare. He's bumbling as a super cop, setting up his own home as a target but posting no lookouts, losing his gun to his prey and stumbling into a tree when a pretty girl passes. Jade ultimately is the most inept yet conceited investigator since Maxwell Smart, although he seems to have superhuman strength even when the bones in his hips and legs are shattered. Though Travers gets short shrift in the chase, the reader might not miss her or any of the other crudely drawn secondary characters. This tale is mainly for those who enjoy graphic descriptions of grisly murders and who will believe the poorly delivered face-off between a monstrous criminal and his absurd nemesis. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. ### From Library Journal Just offshore from San Francisco stands the Tower, an ultra-maximum-security federal prison. When Allander Atlasia escapes from the Tower, he kills everyone there except one inmate. The FBI calls in former agent and tracker extraordinaire Jade Marlow, who profiles and hunts felons thought to be impossible to catch. The story follows Marlow's efforts as he tries to ensnare his prey and in the process loses most of his humanity. First novelist Hurwitz has created two very powerful characters in Atlasia and Marlow, showing their similarities as well as their obvious differences. Hurwitz also delves into Freudian psychology in a subplot that addresses Atlasia's drive to kill his father. The disappointment here is Special Agent Jennifer Travers, who instead of being a foil for Marlow ends up as his doormat. The violence of the killings will upset some, but for the most part this is for collections where thrillers are popular.--AJo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Hts. *University Hts. P.L., OH* Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.