Paying the Piper: 1 (Fleetwood and Sheils, 1) - Softcover

For years, the serial kidnapper known as the Piper got rich by abducting children from San Francisco’s wealthiest families.

When crime reporter Scott Fleetwood gets a call from a man identifying himself as the Piper and offers an exclusive interview, Fleetwood jumps at the chance. But the caller turns out to be a fake, and the rash decision costs the life of the real Piper’s latest victim.

For eight long years, Fleetwood has lived with unbearable guilt—and the enduring disdain of the entire Bay area. Now he hears from the real Piper—and it’s not for an interview. The kidnapper has the reporter’s son. But he doesn’t want money...he wants blood. And he’s going to use Fleetwood to get it.

In the tradition of Harlan Coben and Gregg Hurwitz, Simon Wood weaves a plot thick with suspense and heavy with action. Paying the Piper grabs hold from page one and doesn’t let go until new debts are paid and old scores settled.

Anthony Award–winning author of a dozen books as well as over 150 published stories and articles, Simon Wood is an ex–race car driver, a licensed pilot, an animal rescuer, an endurance cyclist, and an occasional private investigator. Having dealt with dyslexia from an early age, Wood’s ambition has been met with rave reviews for his previous publications, including Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, We All Fall Down, Terminated, Asking for Trouble, and The Fall Guy, among numerous others published under his horror pseudonym, Simon Janus. Originally from the UK, Wood moved to the US in ’98 to share his world with his American wife, Julie—and a longhaired dachshund and four cats.