The Last Dead Girl

Set in 1998, this prequel to 2009’s Bad Things Happen puts Dolan’s gifts as a storyteller on full display. Series hero David Malone (who later becomes David Loogan) finds himself sitting in the Rome, N.Y., police station, the prime suspect in the investigation into the murder of Jana Fletcher, with whom he recently began an affair. David soon learns that Jana was involved with the Innocence Project, an organization committed to freeing the wrongly accused. Believing Jana’s murder to have some connection with her investigation of Gary Dean Pruett, a man convicted of killing his wife, David searches out those involved in the Pruett case for answers. Throughout David is secretly followed by K, an elusive, homicidal deviant who wants to stop David from discovering the truth. That K doesn’t just kill David right off doesn’t really make sense—after all, he has few qualms about murder—but if you can look past this detail, you’re in for a suspenseful ride. Agent: Victoria Skurnik, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. (Jan.)