cover image A Lying Silence

A Lying Silence

Laura Coburn. Onyx Books, $5.99 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-451-40641-5

What starts as a fast-paced double-murder investigation deteriorates into a predictable melodrama. Strained by her impending divorce and her concern over her son, Detective Kate Harrod (A Desperate Call and An Uncertain Death) is further racked by the murder of a four-month-old baby and by her attraction to a fellow cop. Coburn is strong throughout on the elements of a police procedural, but the plot becomes implausible and the first-person narration consists of either overheated dialogue ("" `We'll go slow... We won't let haste spoil whatever this is that's happening' "") or awkward descriptions (""My brown hair was disheveled and my hazel eyes--sometimes gray, sometimes green, depending on my mood and the colors that surrounded them--were dulled with weariness and a slight anxiety""). (Aug.)