In this solid British police procedural from Simms (Pecking Order
), Manchester Det. Insp. Jon Spicer looks into a bizarre series of murders, starting with the death of 22-year-old singer Polly Mather, whose throat is found clogged with a mysterious hard white substance. Simms shifts back and forth between the present—the autumn of 2002—and earlier the same year, when Spicer reconnected with an old friend, Tom Benwell, an advertising executive. Benwell has an unusual phobia, triggered by discarded used chewing gum, that’s extreme enough to jeopardize his job. As Spicer investigates the murders, he finds a prime suspect in Benwell’s company, a social misfit known by his colleagues as Creepy George. The author does a decent job of mixing the police investigation with Benwell’s professional decline, though the resolution may strike some readers as too predictable. Spicer makes an appealing, if familiar, lead character. (Sept.)
