The kind to kill

Wegert's fine fourth crime thriller featuring Shanna Merchant (after Dead Wind) finds Merchant, now a senior investigator for the New York State Police in Alexandria Bay, N.Y., whose expertise is missing persons, continuing to try to cope with her own victimization. Merchant was once a respected member of the NYPD, until she was captured by the serial killer she'd been hunting, Blake Bram, and learned he was her own cousin. She managed to escape, but in the process, Bram fatally shot a rookie police officer, Jay Lopez. With Bram now dead, Merchant is hoping her current position will become calmer and more routine. Those hopes are dashed when tourist Rebecca Hearst vanishes after an argument with her husband. Evidence surfaces that Rebecca may have become the victim of a murderer copying Bram's m.o., and Marchant fears that the possible homicide may be connected to the arrival in town of Lopez's widow and her brother, who has a significant criminal record; both of them promise to make Merchant's life "a living hell." The complex plot and subtle characterizations elevate this above similar fare. Wegert remains a writer to watch. Agent: Marlene Stringer, Stringer Literary. (Dec.)

A New York state cop makes still another heroic effort to exorcize her murderous cousin from her life--and he takes a lot of exorcizing. Years before Blake Bram became the East Village janitor who kidnapped and killed Jess Lowenthal, Becca Wolkwitz, and Lanie Miner, he was Abraham Skilton, the cousin and childhood playmate of Shana Merchant, whose love and companionship he repaid by abducting her as well--and he might have executed her, too, if he hadn't been killed first. Even though Shana has moved to the Thousand Islands, Bram has continued to haunt her in unimaginable ways. His latest avatar is revealed by a combination of two painful experiences: the disappearance of Rebecca Hearst after an argument with her well-connected husband, car-dealership heir Godfrey Patrick Hearst III, and the publication of a vitriolic anti--Shana Merchant screed in the local paper by Gracelyn Barlowe that attracts the attention of Estella Lopez, the wife of Jay Lopez, a rookie cop who was killed trying to rescue Shana from her cousin's clutches, and Javier Barba, Estella's ex-con brother, both of them bent on making her life hell. It's an unnecessary gesture, since her late cousin is already doing a bang-up job--this time through a series of copycat killings of women who share the first names of his earlier victims. The author turns the screws on Shana even tighter by making Gracelyn Barlowe the mother of Juliet Barlowe, the pregnant wife of Shana's fellow cop Don Bogle, who soon comes under suspicion himself. Considering who the bogeyman clearly is and remains, Wegert does an admirable job of generating mounting suspense. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.