Your worst nightmare is his dream come true.... A relentless debut novel filled with cutting-edge forensic and investigative detail, Birdman marks the arrival of a uniquely talented writer. Detective Jack Caffery--young, driven, and seemingly unshockable--catches a career-making or career-breaking homicide in his first case as lead investigator with London's crack murder squad.  A young woman's body has been discovered, dumped on wasteland near the Millennium Dome site in Greenwich, England. It's the most brutal degradation of the human form that the squad has ever uncovered. Caffery's well-deserved reputation is that of the most stoic of detectives, but his initial inspection of the corpse will forever sear his psyche. One by one, four more corpses are discovered only steps away from the first. Five bodies, all young women, all ritualistically murdered with cunning precision. And when a postmortem examination reveals a singular, macabre signature linking the victims, Caffery realizes that he's facing the most dangerous offender known to the force: a sexual serial killer. In the murky recesses of his own mind, Caffery harbors the haunting legacy of a loved one's slaying.  What baffles him is that not a single missing person's report has been filed for any of the five young women. How has the Birdman chosen these seemingly perfect victims? Now, as he employs every weapon forensic science can offer, Caffery knows that time is running out before the killer strikes again, and that he must put away his tortured past in order to safeguard the Birdman's next prey. With refined craft and beguiling imagination, Mo Hayder is certain to skip the hearts of the most demanding readers of crime fiction. This crackling psychological thriller introduces police detective Jack Caffery, who is on the hunt for a serial killer the British tabloids have nicknamed "The Millennium Ripper." The Ripper is behind the murder of five prostitutes, whose bodies are unearthed beneath the rubble of a Greenwich landfill. All the victims have been raped and their bodies horrendously mutilated--but not until after being killed by a dose of heroin injected directly into their brainstems. What stuns Caffery even more is the one detail of the murders the public doesn't know; the hearts of the women have been replaced with live birds sewn into the victims' chests. Caffery himself is a tortured man, still burdened by guilt over the decades-old murder of his younger brother and frustrated because he cannot bring the man he knows is responsible to the bar of justice. When the Millennium Ripper confesses to the prostitute killings just before taking his own life, Caffery faces his own limitations and begins to make peace with his past. But then another prostitute is found dead, her body ravaged in the same way, a bird where her heart was--and Caffery realizes that his past may never truly be put to rest. A solid page turner, this gripping debut by a young Englishwoman introduces a complex and fascinating protagonist destined for another appearance. Meanwhile, Birdman will enthrall readers who just can't get enough of Hannibal Lechter. --Jane Adams Hayder's publisher is comparing the first-time British author to John Sandford, which is something of a stretch. Her hero, Detective Inspector Jack Caffery, is as sympathetic as Sandford's Lucas Davenport, and at times the level of suspense is comparable, but her character and plot development fall short. Other than Caffery, few of the characters are fully realized, and the explanation for the serial killings that occur is unbelievable. The newest member of the Area Major Investigation Pool, Caffery is called to examine the deaths of five women, each found with a bird in her chest cavity. When other investigators take the case in a wrong direction, Caffery risks his new position to find the truth. His search is at times gruesome but always compelling. As a first book in a potential series, Birdman is recommended for larger public libraries. -AJane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. Britains best actors are probably already queuing up to audition for the TV miniseries that will inevitably (and rightly) be made from this top-notch debut thriller, a deftly plotted assault on the nerves whose only serious weakness is its over indebtednessfor crucial horrendous detailson Thomas Harriss already seminal The Silence of the Lambs. Protagonist Jack Caffery, a streetwise and burnt-out detective inspector in his early 30s, is introduced to us as the bearer of several potentially crippling burdens, including relationships with a lover he cant bring himself to abandon (she being a recovering cancer patient), a rival detective dedicated to putting Caffery in his place, and the haunting memory of his brothers unexplained disappearance and probable murder, years earlier, by Jacks grinning next-door neighbor, who seems perpetually to dare the detective to accuse him. Th