James Andrew, The Perfect Woman

The Perfect Woman

James Andrew

Pinnacle, Apr 2010, $6.99

ISBN: 9780786022151

John Stallings is a police detective in the Jacksonville, Florida Sheriff's Office Missing Person's Unit. Most of those assigned to this division use it as a step up the ladder. Stallings asked for the transfer after his oldest daughter Jeanie vanished three years ago. Now he spends his free time looking for runaways so he can help them while he and his family struggle with a return to normalcy. However, a case hits home, which leads to Stallings distancing himself from his loved ones as he diligently seeks the Bagman.

A serial killer the Bagman is William Dremmel, a pharmacy store clerk and part-time community college science teacher. He abducts young runaways in order to perform drug experiments on his victims until they die. While following a tip on a runaway, he finds a corpse. The lieutenant adds Stallings to the investigation, which angers lead detective Mazzetti as each despises the other. When the Bagman kidnaps a female close to both cops, they team up to try and save her.

The Perfect Woman is a taut action-packed police procedural that keeps the reader on the edge of the seat throughout. Stallings is wonderful as his family life is fragile because no one has moved on from the vanishing of Jeanie and he hides from his loved ones with his obsessive dedication to the job . Various characters tell the tale in a third person voice to include the Bagman, which adds to the gritty realism of capturing the serial killer before the next female is dead.

Harriet Klausner