Dead Gone

Liverpool Det. Insp. David Murphy pursues a wily serial killer in British author Veste’s craftily plotted debut. A note found on the first victim, college student Donna McMahon, indicates that the killer performed experiments involving drugs on the 20-year-old woman (she “wanted to die. She begged for an end. Not because she was in pain, or through fear. She believed she could see the afterlife”). Two more bodies surface in the next four days. As Murphy and his able assistant, feisty Det. Sgt. Laura Rossi, focus their investigation on the City of Liverpool University’s psychology department, to which all the victims had some connection, pressure on the beleaguered detective mounts both from the press calling for his removal and a killer who seems to be targeting him as his next experiment. Though the murderer’s grandiose scholarly claims for the carnage pale in the light of day, and the pivotal character of Murphy’s now-estranged wife remains underdeveloped, Veste keeps this gritty procedural moving through the shocking final revelations. Agent: Philip Patterson, Marjacq Scripts (U.K.). (Jan.)