Freak

Readers are advised to read Hillier’s frightening 2011 debut, Creep, before this so-so sequel, which features many of the same characters. In the previous book, Abby Maddox, the girlfriend of serial killer Ethan Wolfe, went to prison for nearly cutting the throat of PI Jerry Isaac, a former Seattle policeman. In the year since that assault, the authorities have been trying to link Maddox to Wolfe’s murders. With both the mental and physical scars still all too fresh, Isaac is horrified to learn of a new horror from his former Seattle PD colleagues. After strangling a young woman with a zip tie, someone carved “Free Abby Maddox” into her torso. The search for the killer inevitably connects to the previous crimes. Efforts at humor (“There was one simple reason Jerry didn’t like cemeteries. They were full of dead people”) do little to enhance a familiar serial killer story line. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg. (Aug.)