Illona Haus Blue Valor

Blue Valor

Illona Haus

Pocket, Feb 2006, $6.99, 367 pp.

ISBN: 0743458092

Baltimore homicide detectives Kay Delaney and Danny Finnerly are partners on the job and in their personal lives, even though she has commitment problems that will not allow her to move in with her lover, let alone marry him. Their latest case starts off bizarrely when a human heart is left near the posh private Langley Country School. During the interviews of the staff, the two cops learn that a student, Leslie Richter, was murdered two months ago.

Kat has a hunch that the heart and the murdered girl are connected, which makes her wonder if they have a serial killer on their hands. A few weeks later, another young woman is raped, beaten, and left for dead near a highway; she dies in the hospital. Forensic evidence affirms that the same person killed the three coeds, and when a fourth has been abducted, Kay is in a race against the clock to find her before she too dies.

Fans of police procedural thrillers, like those written by Kay Hooper and Leslie Glass, will want to read the tense BLUE VALOR. The storyline that provides the tormented internal soul of police officers, especially how their struggles with a nasty case involving youngsters impact their emotions and subsequently their personal lives. Illona Haus is a talented author who provides many twists to the homicide investigation that will keep her audience wondering what will happen next. However, it is the humanizing of her heroine and her partner that makes this a worthy read.