Rage Against the Dying

Resist any temptation to bail after the creepy prologue—a sexual predator’s-eye-view of the woman he’s about to attack—because then you’ll miss one of the most memorable FBI agents since Clarice Starling as well as a killer debut thriller. At 59, Brigid Quinn has officially closed the book on a legendary—and controversial—Bureau career, including years undercover, and is struggling to forget the horrors that still haunt her as a newlywed in a suburb north of Tucson, Ariz. Then the authorities arrest trucker Floyd Lynch, who claims to be the Route 66 Killer—the one notorious homicide case she didn’t close, and which seven years earlier claimed the life of her protégée, rookie undercover agent Jessica Robertson. But some things just don’t add up to either young FBI agent Laura Coleman or Quinn. The steely veteran finds herself thrust back into a nightmare that threatens to shatter her new life—if it doesn’t get her killed. First-time novelist Masterman, acquisitions editor for a press specializing in forensic medical textbooks, ratchets up the suspense with a secondary plot it would be criminal to reveal, stumbling only when it comes to Quinn’s less than convincing domestic bliss with a widowed former priest turned college professor and his pair of pugs. Agent: Helen Heller, the Helen Heller Agency. (Mar.)