The Dark Corners of the Night: An Unsub Novel

Edgar-winner Gardiner stumbles in her derivative third thriller starring FBI agent Caitlin Hendrix (after 2018’s Into the Black Nowhere). In Los Angeles, someone is targeting couples with children in their homes, fatally shooting the adults while leaving the traumatized children alive. The LAPD calls in the FBI, and the emotionally damaged Hendrix, who has a cutting disorder, becomes part of the team hoping to catch the murderer, who calls himself the Midnight Man, before he strikes again. The psychology is less than impressive. At one point, the profiler employed by Hendrix’s team pegs the Midnight Man as coming from a Christian background, solely because he used the word legion when speaking to a survivor of one of his attacks. Staccato prose doesn’t help (“The work was important. It kept people alive. It put killers in prison”). This is an uninspired effort that’s best for readers who have never read a similar book before. Agent: Shane Salerno, Story Factory. (Feb.)