Burning Time

All superficial characterization and sadism, this thriller about a serial killer, its plot founded entirely on coincidence, is charmless in the extreme. When a man and a woman show up at NYPD headquarters to file a missing persons report on their college-age daughter, detective April Woo does the paperwork. Woo eventually learns that California cops have found the daughter's apparently fire-branded body near San Diego. Shortly thereafter, a New York psychiatrist approaches Woo with several disturbing letters sent to his porno-star wife. The letters have a San Diego postmark, prompting Woo to connect them with the murderer (3000 miles away, but not for long.) Horrific, if predictable, descriptions of the pyromaniac killer and his methods of torture are interspersed with updates on Woo's investigation. Glass ( To Do No Harm ) attempts a multicultural angle by casting Woo as a Chinese-American in conflict with her old-fashioned immigrant mother, but the tension between them is hackneyed at best. From its farfetched premise to its suspenseless action-drama climax, the novel is a chore to wade through. (Oct.)