Waking Hours

Forensic psychiatrist Dani Harris teams with former football star and aspiring PI Tommy Gunderson to investigate the ritualistic murder of a girl in picturesque and wealthy East Salem, a fictional town in Westchester County, N.Y. Nightly visions, sleepwalking, and a midnight visit from a deranged woman prophesying in Latin hint at supernatural complications, while expensive private schools and corrupt lawyers try to stonewall the investigation. The rekindling of Dani and Tommy’s mutual unrequited high school crush develops in a series of painful teen-romance passages, but doesn’t distract too much from the pacing of the mystery. The book is loaded with overdramatic short sentences (“He turned on his flashlight. Felt with his hand. Something”) and the descriptions of technology are both obsessively detailed and frequently puzzling, but a truly chilling predator and some great snappy, funny dialogue will keep readers engaged. The conclusion sets the stage for two planned sequels. (Oct.)