Primal Fear

About “Primal Fear”

This 1993 thriller novel by William Diehl opens with the murder and mutilation of a sainted archbishop in Chicago, after which an angelic-looking young man, Aaron Sampler, is found in a confessional covered in blood, insisting on his innocence. Attorney Martin Vail, forced to defend Sampler in a case he cannot win, assembles a legal team including ex-judge Jack Scalding, investigator Tommy Goodman, and psychiatrist Molly Arrington, who first understands the truth behind the killing.