Matt Wells, once a best-selling novelist, is suffering from such a bad case of writer's block that he seizes on the smallest opportunity, such as checking his Web site for e-mails from fans, to convince himself he is still a writer. But when the e-mails from one of his most loyal readers suddenly turn threatening, Matt is plunged into a nightmare so bewildering that it could have come from the pages of the kind of novel he used to write. Why is the man who calls himself the White Devil committing gruesome crimes, and why is he leaving evidence at the scenes that links Matt to those crimes?