A neuroscientist-turned-FBI-profiler discovers a gene
that produces psychopaths in this thrilling

Dr. Lucas Madden is a neuroscientist-turned-FBI profiler who first gained
global recognition for cloning the ripper gene and showing its dysfunction in
the brains of psychopaths. Later, as an FBI profiler, Madden achieved further
notoriety by sequencing the DNA of the world’s most notorious serial killers
and proposing a controversial “damnation algorithm” that could predict serial
killer behavior using DNA alone.

Now, a new murderer—the Snow White Killer—is terrorizing women in the
Mississippi Delta. When Mara Bliss, Madden’s former fiancée, is kidnapped, he
must track down a killer who is always two steps ahead of him. Only by entering
the killer’s mind will Madden ultimately understand the twisted and terrifying
rationale behind the murders—and have a chance at ending the psychopath’s reign
of terror.

Halloween, 1983.

Crossroads, Mississippi.

Every Halloween the ladies from Crossroads Baptist took
us to different church members’ houses for trick-or-treating, so no razor
blades, rat poison, or liquid Drano would end up in our candy.  My mother was always one of the chaperones,
and that night she rode in the front seat of Mrs. Callahan’s station wagon with
us.

The car rolled steadily beneath the swaying fingers of
Spanish moss as we left the swamps. Glowing faces floated in the back seat
around me as we bounced over the rutted, gravel road.  A ghost, a cowboy, a ballerina, a ghoul. One
kid even wore a devil mask beside me.

I wore a knight’s costume, replete with a wooden sword
and a breastplate of armor made from an aluminum trashcan.  The lid served as my shield.

Mara, my twelve year-old girlfriend, sat beside me.  She was dressed like a princess, a silver
tiara glinting atop her raven black hair in the moonlight.  We’d stolen a kiss in the bathroom of the
church basement earlier, during the apple-bobbing contest.  There, in the darkness of the back seat, I
could still taste the cinnamon from her glossed lips.  The memory of kissing her, somehow finding
her mouth with my own in that dark and forbidden bathroom, had sent pulsating
waves of excitement through my young torso for the entire night.

We continued along the gravel roads not speaking, just
stealing glances in the moonlight.  No
man-made lights or lampposts punctuated the pine-choked countryside surrounding
us.  Out the windows a million stars
spread away from the Milky Way like a white paint explosion across a
midnight-blue canvas.

Just as Mara leaned towards me to finally speak, the car
slammed to a halt, screeching in the gravel and sliding a good twenty feet on
the road.  All the kids toppled to the
floorboard and after a moment’s silence, Mrs. Callahan’s voice whispered in the
dark.  “Oh, my God.  What’s that?”

I poked my head above the back seat just as my mother
replied, the thick curls of her black hair spilling over the seat and filling
my view.  “Oh, just some young boys
horsing around up there.  Wait.  Is that blood, Marjorie?  Drive on up.”

Mrs. Callahan shifted into drive, but didn’t take her
foot off the brake.  “Probably just a
Halloween prank, Mrs. Madden.  We best go
on around.”  Mrs. Callahan’s eyes were so
intensely focused ahead that I craned my neck away from my mother’s hair to
follow her gaze.

Two teen-age boys, both in white T-shirts and jeans,
stood illuminated on the road ahead.  One
of them turned toward us, shielding a hand in front of his eyes, the front of
his T-shirt stained a deep red.  A moment
later the other boy staggered and fell sideways into the shallow ditch along
the far side of the road.

“Margie, I think they’re really hurt,” my mother
said.  “Maybe they were in a car wreck.”

 Mrs. Callahan’s
eyes narrowed and her voice fell to a growl. “Ain’t no cars around here, Mrs.
Madden. Why don’t we just go to the next house and call an ambulance?”

I inhaled the air behind my mother’s hair.  She used Prell, and her hair smelled just
like the green liquid in the bottle.  She
faced Mrs. Callahan, but caught sight of me out of the corner of her eye and
cupped my chin in her hand as she spoke. 
“It wouldn’t be Christian, Margie. 
Drive on up, and I’ll roll down the window and ask them what
happened.  Go on.”

Mrs. Callahan eyed my mother as if to speak, but instead
released the brake and we rolled forward in the night slowly, approaching the
boys.  The one boy still lied face down
in the ditch, unmoving.  The other one
stumbled at the edge of the road, moving in circles back and forth as though tracing
the symbol for infinity. 

My mother rolled down her window.

The boy who was still standing was crying.  His blond hair hung in front of his face, and
he whined.  “Help us, please.  There’s another boy on the other side of the
hill.  He ain’t moving, either.  We had an accident.  We were riding motorcycles.”

My mother unlocked and opened her door.  “Margie. 
You stay with the children–” she began, but Mrs. Callahan’s hand shot
across the seat and clutched my mother by the sleeve of her white sweater. 

“Mrs. Madden. 
Really.  I don’t know.”

My mother leaned back inside and smiled.  But it wasn’t the genuine kind, rather the
kind she always used whenever she was about to end a conversation.  I knew it, and Mrs. Callahan knew it, too. 

“Margie, these boys are hurt,” she said, “and I’m a
nurse.  It’s the only thing I can
do.  Ya’ll go on up to Nellie’s.  Call 911 and the ambulance.  Then call Jonathan and let him know I’m all
right.  Leave the children at Nellie’s
for the time being.  When the police get
there, bring them here.  We’ll be waiting
right here on the side of the road. 
Hopefully that poor boy in the woods isn’t hurt too bad.”

“Mama,” I said.

“Hush.  Go on up
with Mrs. Callahan and I’ll help these boys, then I’ll see you and daddy up at
the house.  I love you, Lucas.”

The memory always goes fuzzy then.  The next thing I remember is my mother’s face
receding into the dark woods as Mrs. Callahan drives away.  I press my face against the glass of the
window, a tear trickling for some reason over my cheek as the one bloodied boy
holds my mother’s wrist and leads her into the overgrown grass and small
trees.  My mother looks back at me one
last time, smiling the way only women can, the one that’s sad and frightened
and turned in the wrong direction but is supposed to reassure you that
everything will be fine.

It’s the last time I’ll ever see my mother’s face.

They disappear into the woods.

And just before our station wagon crests the hill, I see
the other mortally wounded boy suddenly stand up in the ditch, not looking at
all as sick and hurt as he’d appeared before. 
He looks furtively about to make sure no one is watching, then runs into
the woods, sneaking behind my mother and her bloodied companion.

I wrestle and thrash in the car, begging Mrs. Callahan to
stop, until she finally screams at the top of her voice, swearing at me with a
stream of profanities that stun us all into silence, screaming at me to be
quiet because I’m scaring the other children. 
She drives faster and I can still hear the sounds of children crying all
around me as the dark forest envelopes the empty gravel road behind us,
separating me farther and farther from my mother, forever.

Michael Ransom has been a writer ever since an English
teacher at Corinth High School announced that “they just might have a
writer in the class”. Yes he may have felt awkward momentarily, but he’s
grateful for teachers like her and the impactful votes of confidence they give
young students each day. Currently, he is a scientist by day and an author by
night. He is an adjunct professor at the
University of Pennsylvania and an
executive in the pharmaceutical industry. His laboratories employ genetics,
genomics and other molecular approaches to identify patients likely to respond
to various therapies across many different diseases. His writing is informed by
his scientific background and his first novel, The Ripper Gene, was published
by Tor-Forge in August 2015.

For more information about Michael Ransom please visit his website, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and Linked-In profile.