Pulse

August 27, 2012
The talent that landed Lutz the Shamus Lifetime Achievement Award isn't evident in this crude serial killer yarn, the seventh featuring Frank Quinn, after 2011's Serial. As 2002's Hurricane Sophia bears down on Florida, Daniel Danielle, an androgynous murderer believed to have slaughtered over 100 women, escapes when the transport vehicle being used to move him to a maximum-security prison is overturned in the storm. The sole law enforcement officer to survive the crash insists that Danielle must have perished after fleeing the sceneâeither on account of his injuries or the raging gale. So when a woman turns up dead in New York City in 2008, Danielle doesn't surface as a suspectâeven though the victim bears his trademark mutilations; whoever butchered college student Macy Collins sliced off her breasts while she was still alive. Although Quinn has since left the NYPD, the veteran homicide detectiveâa maverick when it comes to "tracking serial killersâ" is drawn in by the sleazy police commissioner to solve the case before more blood is shed. But readers will likely deem that quota met early onâthe gratuitous violence disgusts more than it thrills, and the book's gratuitous length waters down whatever suspense Lutz does manage to conjure.

July 1, 2012
Daniel Danielle was a serial killer en route to Florida's death row when Hurricane Sophia hit. He was presumed dead, but now either he or a copycat is leaving a string of victims in and around New York City. Police Commissioner Harley Renz needs this case wrapped up quickly, so he calls on his former partner, Frank Quinn, now a private investigator. Most disturbing to Quinn is the fact that the victims all bear a striking resemblance to Pearl, one of his colleagues and the love of his life. The seventh Quinn novel follows a familiar pattern: grisly murders seen through the eyes of killer and victim; crime scenes from which clues slowly accumulate; and a killer who seems determined to pick off one of the star's associates. A new entry in series fiction has been compared to slipping into a comfortable pair of well-worn jeans. OK, but when Lutz and Quinn show up, the jeans are caked with the blood of a half dozen victims. Not so comfy but plenty compelling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)