You can run

Early in this perplexing thriller, the detective frowns at a shelf of crime fiction and disses violence as entertainment, adding it all felt the same. Not here. From the offbeat beginning a car crashes into a garage and reveals a woman held prisoner to the tangled solution, author Mosby is breaking the mold. Responders find the remains of 13 dead women in the house with the garage, and Detective Inspector Will Turner suspects he's found the lair of a serial killer. But he must be careful. His superiors can't know he loved one of the victims or he'll be taken off the case. And he must keep control as some mighty strange folk emerge. Like the novelist who writes about his wife another of the killer's victims in a way that gives Turner the creeps. As the end looms, we learn that the killer had a publicist who had woven a story not from words and pictures, but from reality itself. Add doses of introspection, and one has a novel that mystifies while it spooks. A thoughtful entertainment, ideal for readers seeking the offbeat.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2017 Booklist

This fusion of mystery, police procedural, and noir thriller from CWA Dagger Award-winner Mosby (The Reckoning on Cane Hill) is pure crime fiction gold. A serial killer who has been abducting women from an unspecified area of England for almost two decades is identified after a car accidentally crashes into his garage and reveals a nearly-dead victim. Det. Insp. Will Turner, whose first love was one of the victims, vows to capture the man whom the media has dubbed the Red River Killer. The search is complicated by the husband of one of the victims, who appears to know more than he should about the case, and by a strange set of notes allegedly from the killer sent to the police that may indicate the involvement of another person. The narrative is powered by darkly lyrical prose and a cast of nuanced characters, but it's the bombshell plot twists at novel's end that will leave readers more than satisfied. This is one of those exceedingly rare novels that's virtually impossible to put down. Agent: Carolyn Whitaker, London Independent Books (U.K.). (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.