Necessary Deeds

“Here in Sing-Sing, the killers I’ve met are better storytellers than most of the novelists I’ve represented,” declares literary agent turned convicted murderer Matthew Connell at the start of Wish’s uneven latest (after Watch Me Go). In prison for killing his wife’s lover, Connell jumps at a chance for an early release if he helps the FBI find a serial killer preying on young novelists who have just signed major publishing deals. “The Success Killer,” as tabloids dub the murderer, might be one of Connell’s former clients, a prolific but commercially unsuccessful poet named Ethan Hendee. The Bureau springs Connell from Sing-Sing to go undercover in New York City and “get enough evidence on Hendee to establish probable cause and make an arrest.” It’s a deliciously satirical premise, but the plot spins out of control when Connell reconnects with Hendee and restarts his agency business to look for aspiring novelists with enough resentment to kill more successful authors. Wish writes sharply, and for a while the narrative coasts on its own giddy sense of logic, but the plot’s outlandish elements never quite join up with its more grounded ones. The result is a tonally confused lark rather than the devilish thriller it aspires to be. (Jan.)