But as the full-scale investigation team, at a loss for leads, makes a public appeal for help, Portia -- oddly missing the very stresses from which she's withdrawn -- decides to volunteer her services and return to the media-filled, not to mention dangerous, life of forensic investigation.

When two more women "helpers" are murdered, Portia realizes that she's dealing with nothing less than a serial killer, someone with a simulataneous need to be caught and to outsmart the authorities. And as Portia tries to get inside his mind and determine his identity, she has no idea how close he may be, or how he is manipulating her. In the end, before the killer is unmasked, Portia will be fighting for her life.

In "Help Line", Faye Sultan once again presents an engrossing psychological puzzle, and dramatizes the emotionally and intellectually intense interaction between psychologist and client. It's a relationship that makes for gripping psychological drama and page-turning suspense.