Title: Flinch /
Authors: Ferrigno, Robert.
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Year: 2001
Subjects: Sibling rivalry Fiction; Serial murders Fiction; Journalists Fiction; Brothers Fiction; Los Angeles (Calif.) Fiction
Abstract: "At the center is Jimmy Gage, a tabloid writer for Slap magazine who's been contacted by someone calling himself "The Eggman," a serial killer who has laid claim to six unsolved murders around Los Angeles - except the whole thing is declared a publicity hoax by the police, who've branded Jimmy a publicity hound." "But then a year later, crime-scene photographs of the murders turn up in the possession of Jimmy's brother, Jonathan, a high-profile plastic surgeon. Although Jimmy acknowledges that this makes Jonathan a suspect, he also realizes that this might be simply one more round in the psychological games the brothers have been playing - and Jonathan mostly winning - since they were children. It's a twisted sibling rivalry newly charged by Jonathan's recent marriage to Jimmy's former girlfriend." "Throw into the mix Jonathan's impeccable standing in the community (as compared to Jimmy's lack of one) ... the female detective who can't decide which brother to believe ... and the thugs, con-artists, baby-faced brainiacs, and hard-edged women who are potentially lethal distractions in Jimmy's life." But the distractions will have to wait: Jimmy's committed to discovering the identity of the killer, and no one gets a better pay-off from his obsession than the reader of this edgy, fast-forward, unstoppably entertaining novel.