Blood Work: A John Jordan Mystery

While Lister made John Jordan’s probe into the Atlanta child murders plausible in 2015’s Innocent Blood, he pushes his luck by having the clergyman sleuth’s father, Jack, connected to the case of serial killer Ted Bundy in this subpar 12th series entry (after 2016’s Blood Oath). Jack, a retired sheriff, has always believed that Bundy, who boasted that he did in more women than he was charged with killing, was also responsible for the unsolved murder of Janet Leigh Lester, a Florida high school beauty queen. While he was sheriff, Jack was criticized for ignoring another suspect—Janet’s boyfriend, Ben Tillman, another state sheriff’s son. With Jack dying of cancer, John resolves to exonerate his father of accusations of a cover-up and solve the case. The melodramatic setup isn’t aided by heavy-handed prose (“As if the day was crying for what was about to befall little Kimberly Diane Leach, rain drops fell out of a gray sky of clouds”). Agent: Amy Moore-Benson, AMB Literary Management. (May)