Kiss the Girls (novel)
U.S. cover
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| Author | James Patterson |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Alex Cross |
| Genre | Crime, Mystery, Thriller |
| Publisher | Little, Brown and Company |
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Publication date
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January 11, 1995 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 464 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 30109286 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3566.A822 K57 1995 |
| Preceded by | Along Came a Spider |
| Followed by | Jack & Jill |
Kiss the Girls is a psychological thriller novel by American writer James Patterson, the second to star his recurring main character Alex Cross, an African-American psychologist and policeman. It was first published in 1995, and was adapted into a movie of the same name in 1997.
As a teenage boy in 1975 Boca Raton, Florida, a future serial killer calling himself Casanova kills his first four victims. Elsewhere in 1981 Chapel Hill, North Carolina, another killer calling himself The Gentleman Caller kills a young couple on a lake.
Years later, Casanova leaves a young woman to die in the woods. Around the same time, Police Detective Alex Cross returns to his Washington, DC home to find several relatives waiting for him and is informed that his niece, Naomi "Scootchie" Cross, currently a student at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, is missing. He travels to North Carolina with his partner Sampson. They meet Durham detectives Nick Ruskin and Davey Sikes, who tell them that the FBI and DEA are involved and that eight to ten women are missing, all from different states; all have received notes from someone calling himself Casanova. Around the same time, Casanova abducts another woman, Dr. Kate McTiernan, and makes her part of his harem of young, attractive, and exceptional women.
In Los Angeles, reporter Beth Lieberman is working on a serial killer story about The Gentleman Caller, who has just raped and murdered a 14-year-old girl. He threatens "bonus kills" if his letters are not published in her newspaper. FBI agent Kyle Craig meets Lieberman in LA.
Casanova plans to kill Kate McTiernan because she has broken his rules, but she fights him and manages to escape, running into a forest and jumping off a cliff into a river. Meanwhile, Cross discovers that one of The Gentleman Caller's notes published in the Los Angeles Times mentions Naomi. After contacting Lieberman and her editor-in-chief, he learns that Casanova and The Gentleman Caller are communicating as East Coast and West Coast serial killers. McTiernan, recovering at a hospital, is visited by Cross. He learns she was drugged with Marinol, which leads them to believe that Casanova is a doctor or a pharmacist. Agent Craig informs them that Lieberman was murdered by The Gentleman Caller. Her files contained hints to a possible suspect, Dr. William Rudolph from Los Angeles. Cross and McTiernan travel there with Craig, and McTiernan rules Rudolph out as Casanova, meaning he must be The Gentleman Caller. A manhunt for the killer begins, but he escapes several times and vanishes. A search of his apartment uncovers a picture of him with one Dr. Wick Sachs; notes on the back identify Sachs as Casanova.
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