David Daniel

San Francisco, 1967. The sounds of Jefferson Airplane and the Doors are in the air. Sgt. Pepper has just been released. U.S. casualties in Vietnam reach a new high. The aromas of pot and patchouli float on the breeze, and longhaired kids in colorful garb throng the Haight-Ashbury. The vibes are peace and love. But a serial killer has arrived, too. Dubbed the "Death Tripper," he comes as silently as the fog, leaving carnage in his wake.

Homicide inspector John Sparrow is assigned to the case. Sparrow is tough, bright and flawed, with enemies in high places. At a news conference he meets Amy Cole, a young writer for the underground weekly The Rag. Each comes away from the meeting mistrusting the other. It is soon clear to both, however, that they need each other if they are going to stop the Death Tripper. Amy leads Sparrow into her world, with its ethos of sharing and free love and its sacraments of music and drugs. He brings his first-hand awareness of the dark side. Amid the psychedelic swirl of the Summer of Love they press their hunt.

The trip pits them against the brutal Capt. Moon, who heads the riot police. They encounter The New Riders of the Apocalypse, a band whose music has a darkly powerful effect on listeners, and whose mysterious singer, Circe, may possess psychic knowledge of the murders. The investigation forces Sparrow deeper into his own life and its failures. It was his love for a woman -- and her subsequent death -- that took him away from the pursuit of a killer years before. Now his growing love for another woman drives him forward as he hunts a far more elusive monster.

Amy, who has begun to communicate with the Death Tripper through the pages of The Rag, becomes his prey. And Sparrow, desperate to save her, makes a discovery that turns the love and peace generation inside out and shatters his world forever.