Still Waters

The hero of British author McCrery's tepid thriller, DCI Mark Lapslie of the Essex police, suffers from synesthesia, a rare neurological condition that causes him to taste sounds. At the scene of what appears to be a run-of-the-mill car crash, Det. Sgt. Emma Bradbury shows Lapslie the corpse of an elderly woman, wrapped in plastic sheeting and unearthed when the car plowed into a field. Violet Chambers, they later learn, was poisoned with a common garden plant and the fingers of her right hand snipped off. When Lapslie and Bradbury begin to connect Chambers to the disappearances of other elderly women, they fear a serial killer may be at work, perhaps even one from Lapslie's own past. McCrery, creator of the long-running BBC crime drama Silent Witness , fails to exploit the full narrative potential of Lapslie's synesthesia, using it merely as a trait to define an otherwise bland character. Most readers will solve the mystery long before Lapslie puts together the pieces. (July)