The Tip Line

“I just wanted to get married,” declares 30-year-old Virginia Carey at the start of Cuti’s exceptional debut, a psychological thriller built in part from elements of a still-unsolved Long Island crime. After Virginia lands a job at the Suffolk County, N.Y., police department fielding calls to its anonymous tip line, Det. Charlie Ford asks her out. Virginia immediately decides she loves Charlie and imagines their romance, sex, and marriage in detail. Their first date is postponed after a woman who identifies herself as Verona calls to say that several dead prostitutes lie in the dunes at a nearby beach. The discovery of four corpses propels Charlie and police chief Declan Brady, another unmarried man who attracts Virginia’s interest, into a serial killer investigation. In later calls, Verona claims that a police officer whose name she doesn’t know is involved in the killings. Virginia has grown to trust the other woman, yet refuses to believe that her marriage prospects could be killers. Cuti uses sharply honed prose to evoke a mind driven by desire and denial. Fans of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels will want to take a look. Agent: Maria Whelan, InkWell Management. (Apr.)