The Devil's Menagerie: A Novel of Suspense

Explicit gore is, thankfully, in short supply in Charbonneau's psychological thriller of revenge and murder, but the action is gruesome and the tone grim nonetheless. There's also a paucity of deep motivation: the characters are as thin as the paper they appear on. FBI agent Karen Younger is sent to a Southern California college town where two young women have been murdered and mutilated in the manner of a woman whose death Karen investigated in Germany eight years earlier. As Karen works with the local cops, it's revealed that the killer is AWOL army ""lifer"" Ralph Beringer, out to inflict vengeance upon the world and his ex-wife, who left him years ago in response to his brutality. Glenda (""Lennie"") Beringer divorced Ralph, took their toddler son across the country and eventually married film instructor David Lindstrom, with whom she's had a daughter. The climax, which brings together the killer, the cop and the family, is brutal yet predictably pat--though not nearly as pat as the killer's choice of victims: a Lisl, an Edith, a Natalie, a Nan.... When Karen wonders if the killer is picking his prey by name, her putative boyfriend says, ""That's too goofy."" Indeed. (June)