Over the Line - Tapa dura

Patricia Cornwell meets Cracker. A crime thriller based on a true-life murder by one of America’s foremost forensic pyschologists. Introducing Dr Portia McTeague – witness to evil.

This first book is about the thin line crossed by a criminal when they step over it to become a monster and can be declared insane. A small, sleepy community in South Carolina is horrified to discover they have a killer in their midst who is murdering and eviscerating elderly women. A drifter, Jimmy Lee Wilder – dubbed Jimmy the weird by the press – has been charged and is judged competent to stand trial by the prison psychiatrist and while his defence lawyer wants to plead insanity, Jimmy will almost certainly gat the death penalty. The Prosecuting Attorney has ambitions to become a US senator and executing a murderer will surely win him more votes. It is up to Portia McTeague, as consultant forensic psychologist attached to the case, to prove Jimmy’s insanity and save him from the electric chair.

Dr Faye Sultan is one of America’s foremost forensic psychologists. The case best known in Britain on which she worked was that of Susan Smith who drove her children into a lake and drowned them. Over the Line is based on a real case.