The first victim of New York's Monogram Murderer is a homeless man plucked from the Port Authority Bus Terminal and dumped on the Upper East Side with the letter P carved on his forehead. The second is a gay biker who's adorned with a K and deposited not far away. When a loudmouthed community activist becomes the third victim, Inspector Paul Regal realizes that the Monogram Murderer is trying to entice him into a deranged game of chess (with city blocks taking the place of the game board's squares), but not why the killer is so interested in him. He's not even a homicide dick, but the head of an elite drug force already rocked by murder and the whiff of rotten apples. As Regal's marriage to his fashion-model-turned-interior-designer wife crumbles, he drags reclusive, paranoid grandmaster Billy Abbott out of retirement to play his pieces, still wondering whether he can ever win the crazy game and what will happen if he does. The pseudonymous Stryker (Deathright, 1993) turns in another fast-paced, empty-headed performance, with a battle of wits more reminiscent of a demolition derby than a chess match.

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