Manner of Death

Cook’s subpar 14th outing for married medical examiners Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery (after 2022’s Night Shift) makes the baffling choice to reveal that former Navy SEAL Hank Roberts has killed financial adviser Sean O’Brien on behalf of a company called Oncology Diagnostics in its opening pages, effectively draining the ensuing plot of suspense. From there, O’Brien’s body makes its way to the autopsy table of Montgomery, New York City’s chief medical examiner, with law enforcement suggesting his death was a suicide. With the help of pathology resident Ryan Sullivan, however, Montgomery realizes that O’Brien has, in fact, been murdered. Sullivan soon learns of six other recent cases in Montgomery’s office in which a presumed suicide showed signs of foul play and begins to investigate the links between them before turning up dead of an apparent suicide himself. Montgomery is sure that Sullivan, too, has been killed, and she launches her own probe; Stapleton gets involved after a high-profile news reporter and her husband turn up dead in an apparent murder-suicide and links start to appear between that case and his wife’s. Cook alternates the investigations with scenes that shine a light on the crooked inner workings of Oncology Diagnostics, which pays Roberts and other ex-military killers to eliminate people who threaten its profits. Cook’s characters are paper-thin, and much of the plotting is predictable. Only the author’s most devoted fans will find this worth their time. Agent: Erica Silverman, Trident Media. (Dec.)