The Shadow Catchers

Lakeman's enjoyable but flawed debut introduces FBI Special Agent Michael Yeager, who hits the road to escape his conscience after a child kidnapping case he was working on in Philadelphia goes horribly wrong. He winds up in Dyer County, Nev., where he brawls with a man apparently snatching a handicapped boy while ranting about his missing daughter. When the man turns up dead and disfigured, Yeager is the first suspect, but local sheriff Rafe Archer clears Yeager and recruits his unofficial help investigating the murder and the missing girl, crimes that clearly point to a skilled serial killer. Lakeman delivers a winning protagonist, good pacing and natural dialogue. The plot, however, becomes ever more contrived as it develops, twisting into unlikely and gory shapes that also require psychologically unlikely contortions of the characters. (Sept.)