Rat Run: An Anderson and Costello Mystery

In the prologue of Ramsay’s dreary, rain-soaked seventh mystery featuring Det. Chief Insp. Colin Anderson and Det. Insp. Winifred “Freddie” Costello (after 2015’s Tears of Angels), Sue Melrose, who lives on Altmore Road in Altmore, Scotland, takes her two young sons one summer day in 1992 into the woods, where they fall victim to an ax murderer. Sue’s immediate neighbor, Andrew Gyle, with whom she quarreled, is convicted of the crime. In 2015, Gyle remains in prison with no chance of parole. When Howard Dirk-Huntley, an Altmore Road resident, drives his Range Rover into a sinkhole, the effort to extract Dirk-Huntley and his vehicle reveals human bones, which turn out to be about 10 years old and show signs of having been chopped. If the ax murderer who did in the Melroses committed what appears to be a crime around 2005, then Gyle is innocent. Anderson and Costello interview an odd mix of people who live on Altmore Road en route to identifying a killer whose motivations will strike many readers as poorly developed. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory & Company (U.K.). (Aug.)