The Blue-Eyed Boy

When the body of a charming young man from a prominent family is found in a supermarket parking lot, slashed almost beyond recognition, the murder is at first considered the accidental outcome of a series of muggings that has been plaguing the English town of Reading. However, detective superintendent Mike Yeadings of the Thames Valley Police and the other members of his team gradually discover that the victim, an architecture student, had been a rather nasty piece of work. The youngest of five children of a justice of the peace and a dancer, he had tormented one sister, extorted money from the other and sexually abused his 11-year-old niece, all the while remaining his domineering mother's carefully nurtured favorite. With the insights of police constable Rosemary Zyczynski, who herself had been an earlier mugging victim and who is fiercely ambitious to advance from street patrol to the detective squad, Yeadings untangles family ties and longstanding hatreds to find a murderer. Carefully and immediately portraying both the investigated and the investigators, Curzon ( Three-Core Lead ) delivers a superior procedural. (Apr . )