One of the hundred books a year I read:

The first victim of a Puget Sound serial killer is a poor migrant worker, a person neither the police nor the media are particularly interested in when she disappears. Subsequent victims over a period of months are increasingly higher profile, stirring concerns in law enforcement, attention from media, and doubt from the public.

The killer is confident of his intellect in the pattern of psychopaths everywhere. But as law enforcement focus on the crimes, they become increasingly concerned that the killer has an accomplice, perhaps a female who assists him in his sadistic tortures.

A young newspaper reporter finds herself in the middle of things because the killer reaches out to her to tell his story and to detail his crimes. As he becomes increasingly brazen, she struggles to balance her desire for fame and fortune with the possibility that she is feeding the killer’s ego.

The fifth victim is extremely high-profile, turning up the investigative heat, but things come to a head when Victim Six is kidnapped and the interconnection between the killings becomes obvious.