In Crouch's lurid, disappointing sequel to Desert Places
(2004), horror writer Andrew Thomas has been hiding in a small Yukon town after being framed for a series of murders committed by his disturbed twin, Orson, and the soulless Luther Kite. Andrew thought the two were dead, but a new crime spree—the kidnapping of Andrew's old girlfriend; a mass murder in his hometown of Davidson, N.C.; and the abduction of Elizabeth Lancing, the widowed wife of his best friend—suggests that one of them is still alive. In the hope of rescuing Elizabeth (and, perhaps, clearing his name), Andrew travels to North Carolina and the Outer Banks island of Ocracoke, where Kite's parents live, setting the stage for a drawn-out, bloody climax involving the novel's major players. The action is nonstop, the violence is visceral (if largely gratuitous), but the bad guy is so bad that he holds no interest at all for the reader. In a silly subplot, one Horace Boone recognizes Thomas in the Yukon and hopes to write a true-crime book about unveiling the reputed serial killer. Agent, Linda Allen. (July 11)
