Bad Wolf

Neuhaus’s sequel to Snow White Must Die demonstrates the author’s maturing skills. The drowned teen on the banks of the Main River near Frankfurt appears to be the third victim of a summer party gone horribly wrong, but the water in her lungs is not river water, her battered corpse is not fresh, and her identity is a mystery. As Chief Supt. Pia Kirchhoff and her team at Kommissariat 11 work to discover who imprisoned and brutalized the young victim, more violence erupts: a scandal-mongering reporter is beaten, raped, and stuffed into the trunk of her own car, and a psychiatrist is consigned to a lingering, terrible death. Linking the murders is a tapestry of abuse and corruption, one that reaches to the lofty heights of German society and into Pia’s own department. While Pia has a surprising number of personal connections to the bad guys, this nuanced effort suggests why the author is a bestseller in her native Germany. (Jan.)