Storm

Delving deeper into the mind of a serial killer than he did in his first novel, Messiah, Starling takes readers to the brink of madness with a character who is unrelentingly violent (he tortures his victims prior to killing them by forcing rats to gnaw through their stomachs) yet literate (his victims are chosen based on characters from Aeschylus's complex Greek myth, the Oresteia). The book's unlikely beginnings stem from a suspicious passenger-ferry sinking off the coast of Scotland. Among the survivors is Kate Beauchamp, a chief detective on Scotland's Grampian police force and a member of the Aberdeen Amateur Acting Company, with whom she's traveling. Upon returning to work, Kate is immediately confronted with the grisly murder and dismemberment of pretty Petra Gallacher. Two days later, elderly busybody Elizabeth Hart dies a similar death, and Kate vows to stop at nothing until the dangerous killerDnicknamed Blackadder, after the snake he leaves on each of his victim's bodiesDis apprehended. Starling expertly renders a strong heroine who uncovers no fewer than a half-dozen suspects who were either travelers on the doomed ferry or are somehow connected with its investigation, and he skillfully builds the suspense as he joins various plot lines to the main story and slowly reveals the killer's identity. (Nov. 7)