Walter Satterthwait Perfection

Perfection

Walter Satterthwait

Dunne, Feb 2006, $24.95, 352 pp.

ISBN 0312352441

Veteran cops who thought they had seen everything want to puke; some do. The killer removed the fat from the obese woman as St. Anselm, Florida detective Sophia Tregaskis thinks the murder reminds her of an operation performed by whalers on whales. Her partner, former NYPD detective James Fallon takes charge of the crime scene. The clues are few if any. Two more identical deaths of obese females follow, making it obvious that a serial killer targets overweight women. To aid the cops, psychologist Dr. Eva Swanson begins profiling the killer.

As they dig for clues, James admires his partner for holding up and providing insight into the case, as the culprit is quite clever. As the city panics, the Mayor and police chief, encouraged by the demands of the media to catch the killer or resign, pressure the two lead sleuths. Sophia has learned so much from her veteran partner, the consummate professional, not allowing anything to intrude on uncovering the identity of the killer, except his desire for his much younger partner, but his top priority remains stopping the ritual-like murders before another victim surfaces.

In this day and age in which serial killers are common in police procedural novels, few match up to the centerfold Lector or the real things, but in the "sophisticated" culprit of PERFECTIONS, he comes reasonably close, especially as he dines and wines on quality food and drink. Readers and Sophia appreciate James' professional and methodical sleuthing, for instance lecturing a cop who carelessly parked his car on a crime scene lawn. Though the climatic final twist is somewhere in the realm of Rod Serling plausibility, fans, except overweight females, will enjoy this solid suspense thriller.