Twice Dying A Novel

Do you know what happens if you throw a piglet into a cage with two hungry cobras? NGIs. We read about them every day: violent sociopaths--rapists, arsonists, murderers--who "get away" with their crimes because they're found not guilty by reason of insanity. Instead of prison, these NGIs are sent to live together in concrete-and-barbwire compounds like Psych Unit Three in the Clevinger Rehabilitation Program, a high security mental institution outside San Francisco. They start eating it from either end. Then one cobra will swallow the other. Clevinger psychologist Alison Chapley, a woman with her own dark secrets and needs, spends her days among these NGIs. When one of the most vicious is recommended for release, she immediately becomes suspicios. Digging deep into the hospital's files, she discovers that many of these violent offenders have been fast-tracked, "rehabilitated," and released back into society. After which, one by one, these men begin to disappear. Where are they? Who's behind their release? And why? That's what Naia does. Determined to find the truth, Alison turns to the one person she can trust, her ex-lover Carroll Monks, a physician and medical investigator. Partly because of the danger of the investigation itself, partly because of Alison's sexually charged attraction to danger, Monks only reluctantly agrees to help. Almost immediately they find themselves lured into a macabre and increasingly deadly game of cat-and-mouse, orchestrated by a cunning mastermind known only as Naia. She turns the strong against each other... and harvests the victor. Naia's perverse and carefully chosen clues--plaster marks, a snuff-style videotape, a deadly cobra--draw Alison into a psychological seduction she cannot resist. To save Alsion and himslef, Monks must outwit this brilliant and deranged mind at its own twisted game.... Neil McMahon's Twice Dying is a uniquely heart-stopping read, a stylish, spare novel with a terrifying twist that will leave readers quessing to the very end.