Blunt Impact

At the start of Black’s middling fifth mystery featuring forensic specialist Theresa MacLean (after 2011’s Defensive Wounds), MacLean joins her homicide detective cousin, Frank Patrick, at a downtown Cleveland, Ohio, construction site where a cement worker has fallen from the top of what will be a high-rise prison. Between two dumpsters near the body, MacLean finds a scared little girl covered in blood. The girl, called Ghost, turns out to be the 11-year-old daughter of the unmarried victim, identified as 29-year-old Samantha Zebrowski. The girl says that “a shadow” pushed her mother off the unfinished building. The tension rises as MacLean and Patrick follow false trails while the killer stalks Ghost, the sole witness to the crime. The bond that MacLean forms with Ghost lends human interest and few will guess the killer’s identity before the final desperate confrontation, but stock characters and too many coincidences make this a lesser entry in the series. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary Agency. (May)