In the third of the Ellen Parker novels, it is 2013. From the Carolinas to southern Pennsylvania, someone is killing women and leaving many hanging on barbed wire fences. While the unknown killer is pursued by a multi-agency task force led by the FBI, Ellen Parker, a Philadelphia journalist, is contacted by Iraq veteran Elizabeth Chernov, who found a young girl fleeing from the drug-related killings of her guardians. Chernov believes the girl is pursued by the murderers perhaps aided by the police; she trusts only Ellen to bring them to safety and the two disappear.
The leader of the drug gang has another card to play; he hires a killer calling himself "Dr. John" and working for the Aryan Nation. John is more than he appears, a man so dangerous even the drug gang fears him, and even they do not realize he is the one sought by the FBI. John hunts Chernov and the girl, using Ellen as his guide. Not realizing John is following her, but seeing the killing continuing, Ellen goes to bring in Chernov and the girl. Dr. John comes after Ellen, who finds herself in a life and death struggle to avoid being another woman on the wire.
Steven M. Silver, Ph.D. is the author of the multi-volume Wild Geese Saga science fiction series, three books of poetry ("Victor Echo Zero Five," "American Travelers," and "Hot Chrome, Smooth Leather, and a Red Bandanna"), and co-author of a book on psychotherapy ("Light in the Heart of Darkness: EMDR and the Treatment of War and Terrorism Survivors"). "Woman On the Wire" is the third of the Ellen Parker novels, the first being "A Dangerous Man" and the second, "Killers".