Injecting fresh potency into the phrase "scared to death," the wickedly talented author of The Girls He Adored has delivered a spine-chilling follow-up introducing an unforgettable villain who confronts his victims with their phobias.

The charmingly disheveled FBI Special Agent E. L. Pender is strapping on his non-regulation calfskin shoulder holster one last time. Last day on the job, showing the ropes to his eager successor, Investigative Specialist Linda Abruzzi.

Then a letter from Dorie Bell arrives at FBI headquarters. Last year Dorie attended a phobia disorders convention in Las Vegas. Since then, three attendees have died under suspicious circumstances. A man with fear of heights jumped from the nineteenth floor of a building. A woman with fear of blood managed to cut her own wrists in the bathtub. A third victim with fear of suffocation was found in her bathtub, with a plastic bag over her head.

"If you won't help us," Dorie begs Pender, "who will?" But it may already be too late: Dorie's friend Wayne Summers has now disappeared too. Wayne's phobia is fear of birds. He's currently tied to a bed in a dark basement. And above his head, looms an enormous, starving barn owl.

Fear Itself pits Agent Pender, one of the more endearing sleuths in recent fiction, against a man as immune to fear as he is fascinated by it. It's a duel that will jolt you time and time again, and force you to confront the inevitable question: What is your greatest fear?