The Ringmaster

New Zealand author Symon’s uninspired sequel to 2019’s Overkill finds Sam Shephard, a trainee detective in Dunedin, on the team looking into the murder of Rose-Marie Bateman, a 23-year-old university student. Bateman, believed to be the victim of a serial killer, was found bound and gagged in the water in the Botanic Garden with her head bashed in. A prologue that depicts this killing unnecessarily and prematurely narrows the list of possible suspects. Meanwhile, Shephard’s work on the case is sidetracked by her antagonistic boss, Det. Insp. Greg Johns, who orders her to deal with issues relating to a traveling circus. The Darling Brothers’ Circus, which has been the subject of aggressive protests by animal rights activists, has also been reported to possess stolen property. That drudge work leads to a break in the homicide case when Shephard notes that the circus’s previous stops coincided with four apparently unconnected unsolved murders, suggesting that someone from the circus is the murderer. Thin characters don’t redeem a clichéd story line. (Nov.)