Lone Wolf

In Gregorio’s uneven third thriller featuring Italian park ranger Sebastiano Cangio (after 2016’s Think Wolf), Insp. Desmond Harris, of Scotland Yard’s Organized Crime Unit, needs help identifying a male corpse found in a rural area outside London. It’s not an easy task, since the killer doused the man’s head and hands—as well as his genitals—with acid after shooting him in what appears to have been a professional hit. A restaurant bill in the victim’s pocket suggests that he recently ate a meal in Umbria, where Harris meets with Cangio, who once lived in London. While Cangio assists Harris with the murder case, some monstrous thing is attacking and disemboweling livestock in the forests of Umbria. The creepy atmospherics of Gregorio’s masterly Hanno Stiffeniis historical series (Critique of Criminal Reason, etc.) are evident in the book’s best sections, but excessive gore may put off some readers. Gregorio is the husband-wife writing team of Daniela De Gregorio and Michael G. Jacob. (Sept.)