Unpunished

In bestseller Black’s solid sequel to 2016’s That Darkness, forensic technician Maggie Gardiner and her associate, homicide detective Jack Renner, investigate the suspicious death of Robert Davis, a copy editor at the Cleveland Herald. Davis’s body was found late one night hanging by the neck above the printing machinery in the Herald’s three-story-high offset room. What first appears to be a suicide turns out to be murder. Talk of the impending death of the daily print newspaper lends color to the case, the details of which police procedural wonks are sure to relish. Black does a good job contrasting the complex characters of her two leads. Given the devil-in-the-details character of her profession, Maggie is naturally drawn to minutiae. Jack’s idea of serving justice leans more toward ignoring the nuance and inconvenience of due process—to say the least—and it’s that divergence that both divides and, ironically, binds the two. Savvy mystery fans should be able to predict whodunit, though the fun lies in the process of getting there. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Agency. (Feb.)