A riveting psychological thriller from the author of THE GIRLS HE ADORED. Just as he's celebrating his last day on the job, FBI agent E L Pender receives a letter from Dorie Bell. Dorie is afraid. Eighteen months ago she attended a convention in Las Vegas for Persons with Specific Phobia Disorder. Since then, three of the delegates have died in suspicious circumstances. Carl Polander had acrophobia. Fear of heights. So what would he be doing on the 19th floor of the building the police say he jumped from? Mara Agajanian had haemophobia. Fear of blood. So how could she have cut her own wrists in the bathtub? Kimberly Rosen had pnigophobia. Fear of suffocation. She was fished out of a canal - but there was no water in her lungs. Dorie, who is a prosoponophobia, suffering from an irrational fear of masks, wants Pender to look into these cases. She suspects that someone who attended the convention is killing people with phobias. She's right. But she has no idea just how close to her the killer is...