Blood Music

Hunter's debut novel is a serial-killer thriller with a fresh, mildly feminist twist. When five young women are raped and murdered in New York City, 24-year-old New Jersey housewife and amateur sleuth Zelly Wyche assiduously follows accounts of the crimes, until she slowly realizes that her husband Pat's late work hours and strange behavior make him a prime suspect. Since we know that Zelly's fears are valid long before she accepts the truth, the narrative never really churns with suspense. A parallel plot in which a near-victim and the brother of a victim team up to stalk the killer adds an interesting perspective, but fails to rescue the narrative from predictability. The most intriguing questions are why and how Pat Wyche, father of a six-month-old daughter and owner of a fledgling electrical wiring business, becomes the vicious ``Symphony Slasher,'' so named because of the references to classical music in the letters he sends to newspapers. Unfortunately, Hunter doesn't quite fill in all the gaps in her story, and she misses opportunities to beef up the horror. She does win points by examining the cultural brutality against women that underlies such crimes. At times, the murderer seems less interesting than his victims, who are more fully characterized here than in most novels of this genre. If not yet adept in the taut crafting of literary terror, Hunter has nonetheless written a diverting novel. (Apr.)