The Killing Lessons

At the start of this exceptional police thriller from Black, the pseudonym of British author Glen Duncan (Hope), two armed men show up at an isolated farmhouse outside Ellinson, Colo., with fatal results for the Cooper family. Soon afterward, a San Francisco woman is found dead, raped and mutilated with a piece of a crystal unicorn inserted in her body. SFPD homicide detective Valerie Hart links this crime and another Bay Area slaying to a string of murders of women in several states across the western U.S., in each of which the killers—DNA evidence suggests there are two of them—embedded a strange object in the corpse. Meanwhile, Valerie is drinking too much and has a rotten love life while Carla York, the FBI special agent brought in as liaison, dislikes Valerie for unknown reasons and works to discredit her. The appearance of an old boyfriend, fellow cop Nick Blaskovich, whom Valerie dumped three years earlier, complicates matters further. Despite these distractions, persistent Valerie displays a real gift for uncovering and interpreting clues. Readers will hope she returns soon in another nail-biter. Agent: Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents. (Sept.)