After writing two novels about World War Two, I knew that if I wrote one more, that was probably the only type of novel I would ever be allowed to write. This business is run by corporations, and corporations believe that the formula for success is to repeat whatever made them money before. There is enormous pressure on writers to do this. But by turning in a very original pitch for a novel about murder and the Internet, I convinced my then publisher Dutton to let me try something new.
It’s hard to believe now, but at the time I began writing, almost no “average people” knew what the Worldwide Web was. I had to do real research to find out how someone might send an image between two home computers, which was going to play a key part in the plot of Mortal Fear. The term “.jpeg” was years away from entering common usage. But far more important than the technical side of the story, Mortal Fear was the first novel in which I began to explore my own past, using the novel from to work through psychological issues in my own life. I’m not saying Mortal Fear is biography; I’m saying that my own experience deeply informs the fiction that makes up the novel. I believe that this self-exploration is the reason that many readers believe Mortal Fear is my best book, despite the fact that technology has passed it by. This novel isn’t about the Internet; it’s about guilt and responsibility. It’s about sexual passion within families tied by marriage. Most of all, it’s about the danger that we court or even conjure when we start to act on the urges that most of us repress throughout our lives. The Internet is merely another vehicle—and a particularly well-suited one—for allowing us to do that with some semblance of anonymity. But that perceived anonymity is an illusion, and we would all do well to remember it. In the digital age, you truly do not know who is watching you.
Ultimately, it was the moment that I turned in Mortal Fear —and it’s subsequent success— that allowed me to have the varied career that I have. From writing about World War Two and Internet murder, I moved on to a civil rights murder, kidnapping, artificial intelligence, repressed memory syndrome, and even a novel involving the supernatural. I cannot imagine sitting down every year to write a new legal thriller, a new medical thriller, a new political thriller, or–scariest of all–the latest installment of my serial character. I want to focus my mind on something totally new each year, and learn all I can about it. In this way, I hope, neither I nor my characters will ever be bored.
With Mortal Fear, Iles enters territory no other novelist has dared, delivering a breathtaking novel of psychosexual suspense.
By day, Harper Cole trades commodities from his farmhouse in the isolated Mississippi Delta. But at night, Harper serves as system operator for E.R.O.S., a highly exclusive, sexually explicit on-line service whose clients range from the glitterati of Hollywood to the literati of New York. Shielded by a guarantee of absolute anonymity, these clients pour their secrets into the digital confession box of E.R.O.S. Only "sysops" like Harper - the high priests of the system - know and see all.
When six female clients inexplicably drop off the network, Harper suspects that something is amiss. But when a world-famous New Orleans author - and E.R.O.S. client - is decapitated in her mansion, Harper breaks the code of silence and contacts the police. They are as shocked as Harper to learn that all six women have been brutally murdered, each with a different weapon, and in a different city. And each time the killer has claimed the same bizarre trophy.
Horrified to find himself the prime suspect in the murders he reported, Harper is swept into a secret manhunt led by the FBI's investigative Support Unit. While the FBI uses the technology of the future and the psychology of the past to trap the brilliant killer, Harper realizes that he alone stands a chance of luring the elusive madman into the open.
Carrying out a daring on-line impersonation, he places everything he has and loves directly in the killer's path. As their secret dialogue unfolds, Harper discovers that the murderer is driven by a fear that haunts us all. But to make a weapon of this weakness, Harper must confront a secret of his own, one that could destroy his marriage and ultimately his life.
With this chilling page-turner, Greg Iles spins an exquisitely intricate plot, infusing it with perfectly pitched erotic suspense and terror.
"Here is a major talent strutting his considerable stuff."
Praise for Mortal Fear
"An ingenious suspense thriller...Fascinating."
- The New York Times Book Review