Publishers Weekly
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Former mortuary technician Urquart (The Butcher Game) continues her grisly series centered on New Orleans forensic pathologist Wren Muller with this underwhelming thriller. Nearly two months after her husband was killed in the previous book, Wren is leaning on her morgue work for the New Orleans police department for stability. Her friend, homicide detective John Leroux, heads to Massachusetts to track sinister pastor Philip Trudeau, a suspect in the murder of Wren’s husband. Then young girls start to go missing in the areas once prowled by now-imprisoned serial killer Jeremy Rose, who targeted Wren once upon a time, and Wren must help interrogate Rose about the disappearances. As the prisoner plays sadistic mind games with Wren and the investigators, Urquart swings for the fences, incorporating into the plot a north woods torture cabin, a masked orgy, and lurid pop-psychology motivations for her villains. All the operatic misery fails to connect, however, thanks to shallow characterizations, cluttered plotting, and too many infelicities of language (as when Wren steadies herself on “grooves of the smooth concrete”). Kay Scarpetta this is not. Agent: Sabrina Taitz, WME. (Aug.)