I found this book in a desk at the B&B I was staying in, when I was desparately searching for a book to read on the flight on the way home. This book fit the bill, your classic thriller without some of the classic elements I hate: passive women getting tortured and held for ransom, slasher sex/violence linkages, dumb plot twists and/or fetishistic creepy killers. Connelly has built a name for himself as a photogenic crime beat reporter turned author and he’s prolific. I don’t think I’ve read any of his books in order but this doesn’t seem to matter too much since he manages to get summaries in without you feeling like he’s rehashing all the books in a series.

I generally don’t do much in the way of plot summaries for genre fiction, but this is one of those smart serial killer stories, not too gorey, not too dull and not so overwhelmingly action-packed that you feel that it’s a bit surreal.