Book description
It is Easter weekend, 1999. A rookie uniformed cop responds to a call
of "suspicious circumstances" in a working class neighbourhood
inn Hamilton, Ontario. The cop meets a woman who is afraid to go near
bags left for garbage outside the house of a man named Sam Pirrera. The
cop confirms the woman's worst fears: the bags contain pieces of human
tissue. The call for backup goes out and a homicide investigation
begins. But who is the victim? Where is the rest of the body? The prime
suspect is Pirrera, a steelworker whose inner demons and capacity for
violence are inflamed by his addiction to crack cocaine. He cannot
tolerate women leaving him, but several have tried to do so, including
his first wife, his current estranged wife, and two women who have
recently visited his house on dates. How far is he willing to go to stop
them? Led by driven investigator Peter Abi-Rashed, who once chased
teenage Sam Pirrera on the streets of Hamilton's east end, police
ultimately learn the unspeakable truth, uncovering a case that shocks
even veteran homicide and forensic investigators.
Award-winning journalist and author Jon Wells takes readers into the
heart of a real-life crime scene investigation and into the chaotic
mind of a murderous control freak. Wells, Canada's top true mystery
writer, crafts a novelistic story that is true in every detail, at
once darkly disturbing and deeply moving.
Jon Wells was born in Montreal, and raised in
London, Ontario. He has received numerous honors for his writing in
The Hamilton Spectator. Two of his true crime serials,
including Poison, published by John Wiley & Sons, have won
National Newspaper Awards. Jon was nominated for Journalist of the
Year in 2008 for the serial that became Vanished. A graduate of
the master's journalism program at Carleton University in Ottawa, his
research for the crime stories has taken him to India, Ireland,
France, New York City, San Francisco, and Western Canada, as well as
into prisons where he interviewed six convicted killers. Jon has also
conducted research in forensic labs and on shooting ranges. Jon can be
reached at jwells@thespec. com.
