Combining the Eastern exoticism of "Rising Sun" with the gripping serial-killer intensity of "The Silence of the Lambs," "Leopard" is the terrifying sequel to Richard La Plante's acclaimed first thriller "Mantis."

Medical examiner Josef Tanaka returns to his native Japan for the first time in fifteen years to learn that his brother has been savagely murdered. To find the killer, he must rediscover his Japanese heritage-and plunge into the mysterious world of ritual tattooing, sumo wrestling, and the Yakuza. But Tanaka faces something even more deadly than gangsters: The Leopard, a remorseless human killing machine, swift, cunning, and unstoppable.

His pursuit of the Leopard leaves Tanaka's relationship with cosmetic surgeon Rachel Saunders in tatters. Yet as Tanaka is drawn within a web of deceit it is only Rachel who intuitively understands the truth.

John Winston Flint, prominent Philadelphia physician, has been systematically tortured to death. Every bone in his body has been shattered-even the joints of his fingers and toes reduced to powder.

The doctor's hidden side is revealed when a police search turns up a collection of sadomasochistic videos in which Flint himself was the star performer-and horrifyingly, one shows a brutal rape and apparent murder.

Fogarty and his friend and colleague, medical examiner Josef Tanaka, also discover that Flint was selling massive quantities of illegal steroids to hardcore bodybuilders. In a world where total physical prowess is the ultimate goal, and strength truly equals power, performance-enhancing chemicals are more than worth their weight in gold.

Nothing in Fogarty's experience has prepared him for this case, where each secret he uncovers seems to lead him farther from the truth, and where the darkest secret of all is written in the blood of two drug-enhanced, steroid supermen.

Incarcerated cult leader Justin Gabriel, convicted of ordering his followers to kill, has spent ten years honing his mind control abilities. His parole hearing is approaching-his one and only shot at freedom-and he is determined to silence anyone who might speak against him. Taking the form of a giant predatory bird, Gabriel terrorizes his enemies-those who got him convicted-through their dreams, causing heart attacks or insanity. The last survivor is ex-cop Bill Fogarty, now retired and enjoying a new life and love. Gabriel invades Fogarty's dreams with terrifying visions, eventually causing a mental breakdown and institutionalization. Fogarty's longtime friend and former colleague, Philadelphia medical examiner Josef Tanaka, desperately tries to put the pieces together in time to save his friend. But will these two men, accustomed to the clinical realities of autopsy tables and precinct desks, be able to fight for their lives in the realm of the Dreamtime?

In recent weeks, three young women have been brutally assaulted and murdered in the city of Philadelphia. Lt. William Fogarty, a time-toughened cop, hardened by personal tragedy, is shocked by the brutality of the crimes. His only lead comes from medical examiner Josef Tanaka. Half Japanese and half American, Tanaka, a skilled practitioner of the martial arts, claims to recognize the method used in the attacks: a karate strike known as nukite, or spear hand. Fogarty has nowhere else to turn. An unlikely combination, Fogarty and Tanaka, forced together by circumstance and neither completely trusting the other, they conduct a desperate hunt, trawling the city streets of Philadelphia and into the dangerous underbelly of the killing arts. Pursuing the Mantis, a creature who uses the flesh of his victims in a sadistic, macabre ritual of self-purification, while Fogarty and Tanaka endanger the lives of those closest to them as they inch perilously close to the precipice of their own worst fears and weaknesses.

Mastery of the martial arts is a hallmark of the works of Richard La Plante. His heroes have carried readers into the heart of the warrior's craft-but never more so than in Tegne: Soul Warrior. As the boy grows to manhood, he becomes a fighting machine, but though he can defeat his teachers in battle, his greatest tests are yet to come. His father hunts him still; worse, the essence of Evil, in the form of a beautiful temptress, seeks to seduce him from the side of good-or, failing that, to destroy him. A colorful, adventurous fantasy, Tegne: Soul Warrior is the epic story of a man's struggle with destiny, his quest for spiritual and physical perfection, and his development from an emotionless killing machine to a wise and caring leader of men."

"Never Again," Richard La Plante promised after he and his new wife completed building their family home in East Hampton, New York. But he did not keep his promise. Instead, he bought twenty acres of raw land on a mountaintop located three and half thousand miles away, in a small town that he had only visited by internet... And the nightmare began. A house in New York to sell, a massive loan to pay off for the newly purchased land, dishonest builders, some of the most stringent building codes in America, and the economic collapse of 2008. With no general contractor, because they had decided to save money by doing it themselves, La Plante and his wife face an empty bank account, a black widow spider infestation and a large wooden frame with no windows. With two young sons to raise, a stony silence between them and a marriage counselor who says in sagely fashion, "There's only one answer. Finish the house," the La Plantes stumble from disaster to disaster. Never Again is a seven year chronicle of trial and triumph, both a warning and inspiration to anyone trying to build a dream.