Carmine Delmonico returns in another riveting page-turner by international bestselling author Colleen McCullough.

America in 1968 is in turmoil—Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated, riots raged in Detroit, and Richard Nixon was elected president. Amidst the new era of paranoia, the leafy Holloman suburb of Carew is being silently terrorized by a series of vicious and systematic rapes. When one victim finally finds the courage to speak out and go to the police, the rapist escalates to murder. For Captain Carmine Delmonico, it seems to be a case with no clues. And it comes as the Holloman Police Department is troubled: a lieutenant is out of his depth, a sergeant is out of control, and into this mix comes the beautiful, ruthlessly ambitious new trainee, Helen MacIntosh, daughter of the influential president of Chubb University.

As the killer makes his plans, Carmine and his team must use every resource at their disposal—including a highly motivated neighborhood watch, the Gentlemen Walkers—to solve the case before it’s too late.

Tension strains Carmine’s ties with colleagues, Desdemona, and his elder son to their breaking point, and the result will astound and test Delmonico as never before.

Since her success with The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough has proved whether she’s writing about a Roman emperor, Mr. Darcy, or an American detective, her fans know they can expect an entertaining page-turner and Naked Cruelty is no exception.