MORT

In this second novel of the series, detectives Mort Hopkins and Danny Hicks are given the Hanger case. Women have been disappearing from the local shopping malls (even after being warned by the police), only to be found months later mudered, hanging from a tree. They cannot figure out how this monster is doing it. Sherry Jensen, a beautiful young wife, is the latest victim and she knows exactly how he does it. She is being held prisoner in a small sound-proof room in the basement of an old farmhouse twenty miles north of St. Paul. She is terror-stricken, knowing what happened to the women before her. So she plans her escape as she placates her abductor, Emil. She wants so badly to see her husband Jack and her daughter again. Emil, a squat, overweight man in his late fifties is a powerhouse of a bully and the offspring of a homicidal maniac father and a stern overbearing mother. His father died many years ago, to Emil's profound relief, leaving him to help support his mother by working the small vegetable farm. After mother passes away he finds himself free to do whatever he wants on the small farm. Female companionship was something Emil yearned for but he could never get a date! He was laughed at by the girls he went to school with and picked on by his classmates and co-workers until he started beating them to within an inch of their lives. Now, he has devised a way to have just about any pretty woman he wants. Mother always said: "Women are like streetcars, Emil, another one will come along in twenty minutes." Also in this novel you will also get a glimpse of Jacky, the next novel's psycho case.