Wounded Prey should come with warning labels:

• Danger: Very dark places ahead
• Don’t start reading on a weekday

I knew that I wanted to read this book, but I didn’t expect that it would be so very, very good.

After a long day of work and a longer evening of homework (long division), I decided to read the first chapter … just to get the taste on my tongue.

I didn’t sleep much that night.

I’m not sure that I would have wanted to with Vern Slocum loose in my mind. The next day I found myself taking long breaks and an extended lunch as I tried to fit in “just one more chapter.” I was done by dinner.

Could. Not. Put. It. Down.

Sean Lynch delivers with a terrifying plausibility that rattles me in places I didn’t know I had.

Vern Slocum is evil. Manufactured, unchecked and seemingly unstoppable evil. You may not believe that the Bogeyman is real, but you will believe that Vern Slocum is.

When Deputy Kevin Kearns stumbles into, but fails to prevent, the abduction of a young girl and the murder of her teacher, he becomes the scapegoat for an outraged community and gets the blame for a flagging FBI investigation.

When retired San Francisco Police Inspector Bob Farrell sees a news report about a little girl in Iowa, murdered, mutilated and hung from a tree, he realizes that an old evil has returned — a killer that he failed to stop 20 years ago.

Farrell makes his way to Iowa and absconds with Deputy Kearns. He knows that, no matter the cost and regardless of the rules, Vernon Slocum must be stopped.

This is not an exaggerated action-hero/buddy-cop story. Farrell and Kearns must use all of their strength, wits and determination to stop Slocum and evade the FBI.

The affections are earned and honest. The pursuit is grueling. The violence is horrifying.

Wounded Prey is well-written, compelling and frighteningly believable.