Jessica Beckett is a survivor of unspeakable acts upon her as a child and is now a determined woman. She is determined to survive her job. She is a bounty hunter in Chicago who sometimes tackles a personal agenda, when children are involved, seeking evil men. She has hired a computer savvy intern, someone to assist her, but has promised herself to keep him out of danger, bodily and legally. Sometimes she walks a thin line legally. That's where her best friend comes in.

Detective Samantha Cooper has known Jessica since childhood. She understands what drives Jessica to put her life on the line, but she hopes that she will not have to arrest Jessica someday when she has taken her personal agenda too far. And she also hopes that her friendship with Jessica will not cost her a promotion.

Payton Archer is a has-been, a loser football quarterback who couldn't cut it in the NFL. At least, that's how he sees himself. Now he hides out in Alaska, burying his woes in the bottle. That's his MO until Nikki Archer, his only niece, runs away from home. Payton promises his only sister he will get her daughter back.

With the help of an old family friend, Payton follows the clues from Alaska to Chicago to meet his police contact, Detective Cooper. Meanwhile, Jessica discovers some information that she shares with Samantha. This is where everyone's path meets. Together Jessica, Payton, and their friends track someone they believe is attached to an online predator. The evidence that Nikki has fallen victim to the predator sobers up Payton, and Jessica becomes even more determined to see this case through. Jessica and Payton are instantly attracted to each other. They are able to let down their guard and find comfort in each other during the increasingly difficult search for the online predator and Payton's niece. What Jessica discovers is unbelievably evil and shocking.

EVIL WITHOUT A FACE is well-written. The premise and the delivery are presented so skillfully that Jordan Dane draws in her readers, captures and holds their attention to the very last word like a tree's roots moving underground in any direction, its resilient fingers wrapping around whatever falls in its path. The suspense and the anxious need to know how the story will end are riveting. I'm glad EVIL WITHOUT A FACE is the first in a series of suspenseful stories that include some of the characters we meet upon these pages.

Book Summary

The Sweet Justice thrillers will focus on the lives and loves of three women--a bounty hunter operating outside the law, an ambitious vice cop, and a former international operative with a mysterious past. These women give Lady Justice a whole new reason to wear blinders. And their brand of justice is anything but sweet.

Haunted and Obsessed
She sleeps with a Colt Python in her nightstand and her senses on alert—Jessica Beckett isn't taking any chances. Hiding a chilling secret, living in a world of snitches and felons, good cops and bad dreams, Jessica is a bounty hunter who brings lowlifes to justice. But not even she can imagine what she'll face when she tracks an online predator who has abducted a naive teenage girl.

Making Promises That Can't Be Kept
Former NFL quarterback Payton Archer swore to his sister that he'd find her only child. But the police have no leads and the teen's trail has turned cold. Plagued by personal demons, Payton's never considered himself a hero. But this time he has to be.

And Fighting a Faceless Enemy
Joining forces to save the seventeen-year-old girl, Payton and Jessica discover that she's nothing but a pawn in an insidious, terrifying global conspiracy. They're battling a new kind of criminal. And soon their race for answers will become a dangerous struggle for survival.

Read an Excerpt

Author Note

Dear Reader,

I’d like to clear the air and take the first step in my recovery program by saying, “Hi. My name is Jordan. And I’m a … I’m a crime fiction author.”

Oh sure, some of you might think this isn’t a big thing to admit. Some may even envy my position, but I’m here to confess that as a crime fiction author, I’m not a well person. Bad men speak to me in my head—and I like it. I visualize a bloody crime scene and all I can think about is, “Does viscera have a ‘C’ in it?” When I say, “I’m cracking open a case” I’m not talking Heineken, people. And making a good impression in my world involves shoe prints or tire tracks. In short, what makes some people squeamish puts me on the fiction happy train.

That’s because crime fiction authors don’t think like normal people. We have a warped sense of reality and of what’s funny. If a man is killed from poisoned chickpeas, this is tragic certainly, but I’m thinking it’s a solid case of hummuscide. And I play deviant games of “what if” scenarios in my head, like what if tupperware could kill? What if coffee shops dispensed mind-altering lattes or espresso was discovered as the sole source of global warming?

Besides talking about the voices in my head and tupperware, I wanted to share what inspired my new Sweet Justice series with Avon HarperCollins and the first book, EVIL WITHOUT A FACE (Feb 2009).

In EVIL WITHOUT A FACE, an illusive web of imposters on the Internet lures a deluded teen from her Alaskan home and launches a chain reaction collision course with an unlikely tangle of heroes who uncover a terrifying global conspiracy. They’re battling a new kind of criminal. And soon their race for answers will become a dangerous struggle for survival. With an international setting, these romantic thrillers will focus on the lives and loves of three women—a bounty hunter operating outside the law, an ambitious vice cop, and a former international operative with a mysterious past.

I used to live in Alaska (10 years) and I love that EVIL WITHOUT A FACE weaves in and out of that setting. On my website’s Story Behind the Story for EVIL, I have images of the characters I imagined for the story and the locales I used, places I’d been to many times. The plot for this story is ambitious and very fast paced, based on a real crime that happened in 2000 in Florida. And I’m particularly fond of the main character in this first book, my Fugitive Recovery Agent Jessica Beckett. She’s scarred both physically and mentally by her past, yet her inner strength is so resilient. Her scars are the imperfections in us all. But one of her most endearing traits is that she’s a real smart-ass. Normally, I fall in love with my male characters, but this woman has stolen my heart on many levels. This new series electrifies me.

I know by now you’re thinking that I really love what I do. I’m conflicted, I suppose. Weighing the consequences of becoming a crime fiction author has not been easy, but I’m taking my recovery one step at a time. And I’m optimistic that I’ll find the right balance—or be forced to find a whole new set of friends.

For more information, please visit my personal website or browse inside my books at my HarperCollins site.