In celebration of the upcoming new chapter in Jasper Dent’s life, I unearthed this document, which spells out what I planned for the rest of the series. At this point, I had just finished writing the first book and had turned it in to my editor. I wanted to give her a sense of what was to come…and as you’ll see, I was trying to get a handle on how many books I’d have.

I originally sold I Hunt Killers and one more book. But I’d always envisioned the story as at least a trilogy, and as you can see below, while I’d figured out how to wrap it up in a second book, I really wanted more.

I’ve redacted a portion of this document because believe it or not, there are some things in here I plan to tackle in the new Jasper Dent books. And like Billy, I hate spoilers!

I HUNT KILLERS:

What Comes Next

OK, so you’ve read the first book of I Hunt Killers. If I did my job, you’re pretty sure I’m a really, really twisted guy and you probably will arrange to have friends in the room whenever we happen to be together. Score for me!

I want to talk briefly about what comes next. Mainly because there are a number of possibilities and I want everyone to be on the same page as we make these decisions going forward.

The second book will pick up soon after the first and will tell the story of Jazz doing what he swore to do in Book 1: Hunt down his father. This will be a harrowing tale, as Jazz comes to realize that in order to find and stop Billy, he may need to sacrifice everything he’s struggled for over the past four years since Billy’s incarceration: his friends, his sanity, his very soul. He will learn what happened to his mother all those years ago, and the discovery may just kill him.

And ultimately, he will have to confront the biggest question of them all: Is he willing to become the killer his father is…if doing so will mean that Billy can never hurt another person? In other words, is Jazz capable of murdering his own father in the name of the greater good?

Trust me when I say: This book will kick ass.

But I don’t want to write it.

What I want to write is, instead, the next part of the Jazz saga, if you will. The second part of a story that goes three or four books.

(Fair warning: I’m going to be a little coy about some things in this synopsis. I’m going to gloss over some stuff. Why? Because you’re my editor and I need you to be surprised — or not — by things in the books to come so that I know if certain twists and revelations work. If I spell them all out here in this document, you won’t be able to tell.)

I HUNT KILLERS: GAME picks up months after the end of the first book. In New York City, the police are stymied. The “Hat-Dog Killer” is at large and no one can figure out who he is, how to stop him, or even what his pattern is. There are fifteen dead so far, all killed in similar fashion, some with hats drawn on their bodies, others with dogs.

In desperation, Detective Samuel Lincoln of the NYPD travels to Lobo’s Nod to beg Jazz Dent for his help. “People are still buzzing about the way you took down the Impressionist. Figured maybe you could toss a little of that mojo our way.”

Jazz agrees to help, even though it will distract him from tracking down Billy. Soon, he has a pile of police reports, which he sifts through with the help of Connie and Howie (as well as a little on-the-sly assistance from G. William and Deputy Erickson). The cases are puzzling beyond belief, and it only gets worse when three more bodies turn up in rapid succession, apparently with no rhyme or reason to them.

But then Jazz realizes two things:

1) There is more than one killer. One is “Hat” and one is “Dog.” The two are playing a game against each other. To be specific, they’re playing a game of Monopoly, of all things, with each victim having something in common with a space on the game board. This makes their moves impossible to predict since each victim is chosen based on a roll of the dice.

2) More importantly, though, Jazz realizes that his father is somehow connected to these killings, too. As with the Impressionist, Billy appears to be the puppetmaster, manipulating Hat and Dog as they play their game of sick one-upsmanship.

What ensues is a thrilling chase on the streets of New York as Jazz and the NYPD struggle to stop Hat and Dog before they can kill again. And even when Jazz’s insights and keen understanding of serial killers leads to their success, he realizes he hasn’t really won — the whole thing has been a game to Billy, who has deliberately put his son through his paces…all so that he can reveal something about Jazz’s mother’s death at the end of the book, in a cliffhanger moment that will  send Jazz spiralling into despair…

…and have readers desperate for the next book.

Now, there can be two more books or there can be one. If one, I’ll combine all of what happens below into a single tale. But I think there’s room for it to breathe a bit.

First, though, I need to backtrack a little bit and explain something: I’m a sucker for a good conspiracy theory. I don’t actually believe any of them, but I love exploring them in all of their twisted, crazy-logic detail. So it’s a happy coincidence that a few years ago — before I ever imagined writing this series — I stumbled upon a story about a crazy theory: That serial killers are, in fact, members of a nationwide cult dedicated to upending the social order by means of violent, terrifying acts of murder. In this theory, serial killers aren’t individual actors — they are part of a careful plan to wreak havoc.

Obviously, anyone who’s spent more than five minutes with a lunatic serial killer knows that this can’t be the case.

But.

But what if some serial killers — the highly organized ones, the high-functioning ones — were part of such a conspiracy?

And what if Billy Dent was at or near the top of that particular food chain?

In the third and fourth books, Jazz — desperate now to uncover the truth behind his mother’s demise — ranges across the country in an attempt to find Billy…and learns of the Collective, a nationwide conspiracy of serial killers dedicated to turning the United States into their own personal hunting preserve, where horrified civilian sheep live lives of mute terror, lorded over and preyed on by their sociopathic masters. Hat and Dog, we learn, were competing to move up the ladder in the Collective’s twisted hierarchy…

[REDACTED]

Jazz must make a crucial decision: Can he sacrifice his own soul to save untold victims? Is he willing to give up his friendship with Howie, his love of Connie, for the greater good?

And then there’s the revelation about what Billy did to Jazz’s mother…and why. A revelation that could very well shatter Jazz into a million unrecoverable pieces.

The chase intensifies and the revelations come fast and furious as Jazz attempts to navigate a grotesque series of challenges leading him inexorably to a final confrontation with his father and to a final question:

Can Jazz kill his own father?

[REDACTED]

Jazz will have to give up everything in his life he’s ever struggled for or dreamed of. His best friend. His girlfriend. The normal life he’s fought for.

His soul.

An impossible decision. A twisted path to a shocking conclusion.

I think people will dig it.

(This piece comes from my newsletter, which goes out monthly. For more stuff like this, and to get it first, sign up here!)