The Man Trapped by Shadows: A Rooker Lindström Thriller

Can the police trust a skilled reporter whose father was a serial killer—and who may, himself, be a murderer? That question ratchets up the tension from the start of Zacharias’s second thriller featuring Minnesota reporter–turned–police informant Rooker Lindström (following 2022’s The Man Burned by Winter). Gunner Lindström was a notorious serial killer, but the police and the press wonder whether the body recently discovered under the floor of the Lindström home was killed by Gunner or his son, since the victim’s wounds aren’t consistent with Gunner’s m.o.. Despite those suspicions, police detective Tess Harlow turns to Rooker for help after another corpse, believed to be that of a woman who vanished years earlier, is found near a lake. Harlow informs Rooker that a message addressed to him was left in an envelope on the woman’s body: below an illustration of a dead bird were the words “Won’t you come out and play?” Rooker agrees to help with the case and winds up in the all-too-familiar position of circling a cold-blooded murderer. What might feel strained in lesser hands is given plausible life by Zacharias’s well-developed characters and tense atmospherics. Readers will be glued to the edges of their seats. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, LGR Literary. (July)