Alice Gray has escaped twice, once after being stabbed in London and then again from her bitter mother and mentally handicapped brother in Boston. Now she is living a quiet life in Manchester, NH. That is, her life is as quiet as one’s life can be when she is hiding from the past in her little coffee shop. But the past has apparently come to capture her, in the form of the nemesis Mister Tender, that her father created in a graphic novel. Someone has sent her a “Mister Tender” book, but who? And why? Her past is here in her present, and Alice has to deal with it. Unbelievably good start to this thriller!