VGC.HarperCollins,2005.First Australian edition-first printing(5 4 3 2 1).Black hardback(silver lettering to the spine,small nicks and dents on the edges of the cover and spine) with Dj(small tear on the edge of the back Dj cover,a couple of small nicks and creases on the edges of the Dj cover),both in VGC.Nice and clean pages with a ink mark and slightly tainted on the outer edges,small damp marks on the edges of page 23 to 30,small nick on the edges of the pages,light shelf wear on the Dj cover.The book is in VGC except for the marks on the edges of the pages.435pp.A collectable first edition-first printing. This is another paragraph From Publishers Weekly: Australian McCullough (The Thorn Birds) portrays one of the creepiest serial killers in recent fiction in this intelligent shocker set in 1965 at an Ivy League university called Chubb located in Holloman, Conn. After an animal lab technician finds a partial corpse in the Hughlings Jackson Center for Neurological Research (aka Hug), police lieutenant Carmine Delmonico discovers that this murder is only one of many--with more to come--committed by a meticulous serial rapist/killer who saves the heads of his victims. The monster leaves so few clues that Delmonico calls him the Ghost and the newspapers the Connecticut Monster. Despite the lack of fancy forensic tools, the determined detective discovers that the Ghost may be connected to a 1930s cold case. Adding heat to the investigation is the African-American community's outrage at the killer's preference for young women of mixed racial origins and Delmonico's growing romantic attachment to an endangered