Gifted with the power to heal by touch, Elena Baxter is quietly working her miracles in the pediatric ward of a Wisconsin hospital near her family farm when she's kidnapped by a group calling themselves "The Consortium." The group takes gifted people for medical study and to serve their more criminal pursuits. And Elena is of special importance to the scientists and doctors who are using her as a guinea pig. Beatrix Weave, The Consortium's twisted mastermind, hopes Elena can cure her paralysis, making her whole and facilitating her plan to control criminal activities on a global scale.

For Artur Loginov, acceptance of his gift has been a long, hard road. Artur is a psycometrist, able to read secrets and emotions through touch. Abandoned as a child, Artur fell into a life of petty crime after leaving a Moscow orphanage. He continued in this vein as an adult employed by the Russian mob. By the time he finally walked away, sickened by the life he'd led, Artur was ready for a change. Salvation came from a U.S.-based detective agency, Dirk & Steele. With the agency, Artur discovered that others like him exist -- a group of people with special powers. The agency gave him acceptance, a new direction in life and, most importantly, friends. In the middle of a particularly nasty murder investigation, The Consortium kidnaps Artur.

With a little inside help and a lot of luck, Elena and Artur escape The Consortium with a pair of shape-shifters the group has also captured for study and experimentation. With Beatrix and her thugs never far behind, the fugitives make a bid for freedom and safety. While it's true that Beatrix needs Elena to cure her physical ailments, one of her lackeys desires Elena for other reasons. It's his degenerate fixation that keeps the group running. Finally able to contact Dirk & Steele, Artur and friends are rescued...or so they think. What should be their moment of triumph could turn out to be a clever trap and the end of them all.

In 2005,Marjorie M. Liu has seen three books published: her debut novel, TIGER EYE (3/6/05), was the first of the Dirk & Steele series; A TASTE OF CRIMSON (8/30/05) was the second book in the Crimson City series; and her X-Men novel, DARK MIRROR (12/27/05). All have been greeted with rave reviews from fans and reviewers alike and deservedly so. Ms. Liu is simply one of the best new writers to appear on the romance scene in quite a while. This new year looks like it will be just as exciting for fans. Her next Dirk & Steele novel, THE RED HEART OF JADE, is due out in July 2006. Then in September 2006, look for DARK DREAMERS, an anthology featuring the 4th Dirk & Steele story, as well as a novella by Christine Feehan. Great news for romance readers everywhere!

Book Summary

Elena Baxter can work miracles with her hands. She can coax bones to knit, flesh to heal. She can mend the mind. She has been doing such work for almost all of her twenty-eight years. That is why she will be taken.

The media called it a rampage of terror, the recent murders. But fighting crime is why Artur Loginov joined Dirk & Steele. The international detective agency specializes in the impossible, and their creed is simple: Help those in need, no matter how difficult, and no matter what, keep the secret safe. For the agency helps its employees, too; people like Artur -- the gifted, the tormented. Dirk & Steele gave the Russian emigre purpose, protection, community...and refuge from his past, for who can trust a man who can start a fire with his mind, or shape-shift, or read others' thoughts as easily as drawing breath? For his similar talent, Artur will be taken.

Into the darkness Elena and Artur will be drawn, into the clutches of evil. Cornered, isolated, caged, they will fight for their very souls. But salvation awaits. it exists in a form least expected: a dream of a face, a brush of a mind, the hint of a kiss, and finally, at long last, a SHADOW TOUCH.