Every kind of wicked

Bestseller Black's so-so sixth thriller featuring Cleveland PD forensic expert Maggie Gardiner and homicide detective Jack Renner (after 2019's Let Justice Descend) deepens the connection between her two leads. Maggie is aware of Jack's many secrets, including his carrying out of vigilante executions of criminals, both in Cleveland and in other cities where he's worked as a cop under different names. To add to the complex relationship, Maggie's life has "not been the same" since she made a "violent decision," which only Jack knows about. Against this fraught background, Maggie assists Jack in solving the murder of Evan Harding, whose stabbed corpse was found in a cemetery with a key taped to his leg. Evan's girlfriend becomes a person of interest after the investigators learn she lied to them about Evan's employment. Two more murders complicate the inquiry, and Black tosses in a gratuitous child-in-peril scene. Awkward prose ("her fury would make Genghis Khan look like Strawberry Shortcake") can distract. Fans already emotionally invested in the characters will best appreciate this one. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Agency. (Aug.)

Forensic specialist Maggie Gardiner investigates a series of murders as baffling as they are terrifying. The first victim looks like a run-of-the-mill mugging: a young man shot to death in the Erie Street Cemetery. But his wounds aren't gunshot wounds. And when Jack Renner and Thomas Riley, the detectives assigned to the case, identify the victim as Evan Harding, a Cleveland State student, Maggie can't figure out what he was doing on Erie Street, which is far from the path between his part-time job at A to Z Check Cashing and the dorm where he lived with his girlfriend, Shanaya Thomas. A second body with similar wounds makes the case even more confusing. According to his driver's license, the deceased is Marlon Toner. But Marlon's sister, Jennifer, points out that like her, Marlon is black, while the picture on the ID and the corpse who was carrying it are not. Jennifer has her own ax to grind: She's pissed that although Marlon's not the dead guy the police found outside West Side Market, someone's prescribing her brother so many opioids that the next corpse might actually be his. Finding out that the detective investigating the West Side murder is her ex-husband, Rick, doesn't really make juggling the two cases any harder for Maggie. Her relationship with Renner is even more complicated than her relationship with her ex. But as the bodies pile up, the interconnected cases become more personal for Maggie, who finds herself enmeshed in a maze of crimes as twisted as they are twisty. First-rate plotting and a compelling cast of characters. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.