Rusty Nail
J.A. Konrath
Hyperion, Jul 2006, $23.95
ISBN: 140130088X

Chicago police lieutenant Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels receives an anonymous snuff video that appears to be the classic work of serial killer the Gingerbread Man, Charles Kork. The only problem with holding the Gingerbread Man culpable is that he is already a guest of the state. Jack assumes it is copy cat with insider information. Since her partner Herb Benedict is hospitalized, she decides to go it alone looking closely at Kork's relatives and friends.

However, though she finds perversion, insanity, criminality and worse as the norm, Jack fails to get any closer to identifying and catching the killer. Instead the unknown murderer seems to target those related to the beleaguered cop who leaves taunting clues like toes in the cookie jar for Jack insisting he is back. Jack knows she must stop this brilliant but psychopath copy cat killer before he toasts the deaths of her loved ones because he seems to be fixated on her.

The killer ironically is obvious to the reader early on while Jack remains clueless as the culprit outplays her at every turn in their cat and mouse encounter. As always with a Jack Daniels police procedural (see WHISKEY SOUR and BLOODY MARY) gore and humor are mixed together often in the same scene. Fans will laugh and groan as Jack battles against a diabolical lethal lunatic, who seems always one step, make that multiple steps, ahead of her.

Harriet Klausner