It started with a child's letter. Karen Wiley, recently qualified San Francisco psychologist, thought she understood moral dilemma. A tormented past, an ugly divorce, and a troubled eleven-year-old daughter have given her more life experience than she ever wanted. Now, somewhere out there, an anonymous child has begun to cry to her for help. No-one Karen knows is in trouble. But the letters keep coming. Then something far, far worse. Until the terror in the Trueblood trailer, Ella McCullers, first female police chief of Canaan, Utah, believed she knew crises of faith. Abruptly promoted to senior investigator in the state's most high-profile kidnapping case, her only leads are a decaying tombstone, a missing cat, and a little mute girl with ghastly, formless nightmares. In truth, it began with The Cult of the Final Days, and the long-buried history of the killings in the canyons. Now Karen Wiley must cross the desert wilderness to hear the incredible story of an astonishing survivor, and to play a deadly game disguised as a righteous quest for the truth. Powerful, hypnotic and terrifying, "The Final Days" is the stunning debut by a chillingly brilliant new voice in thriller writing.