The Silent Watcher

Methos (the Shepard & Gray series) awkwardly combines a legal thriller and a serial killer mystery in this ho-hum standalone. Las Vegas attorney Piper Danes is a guardian ad litem, appointed by the court to represent the interests of young crime victims. That role involves her in a grisly murder case: 15-year-old Sophie Grace’s mother and brother were killed by an intruder who stabbed them with a screwdriver while Sophie was at a school dance. The investigation is assigned to veteran police detective Lazarus Holloway, who suspects the Grace murders were committed by the same perpetrator who slaughtered a family of three two years earlier with a similar murder weapon. As Danes discusses the case with her client, she grows increasingly disturbed by it. Somewhat improbably, she then goes so far as to join Holloway in staking out a suspect’s house. What begins as a promising glimpse into a seldom discussed corner of the law turns into a rote procedural with little to distinguish it from any number of long-running network TV dramas. It’s a letdown. Agent: Amy Tannenbaum, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Dec.)