Shroud of Roses

In Ferris’s exciting follow-up to Corpse Flower (winner of the 2010 Unhanged Arthur Ellis Award), Bliss Moonbeam Cornwall, a divorced socialite now working multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet and keep her motorcycle running, and Neil Redfern, the police chief in smalltown LockPort, Ont., end up working together again when skeletal remains are found inside an abandoned school, where Bliss was a member of the last graduating class. As such, she’s able to provide insight otherwise unavailable to Neil and his investigating officers, but in her typical fashion, when she is told to leave police matters to the police and to stay out of the investigation, she takes things into her own hands. And when another classmate is found brutally murdered, Bliss and her former classmates become not just suspects but possibly the next victims. Apart from the suspenseful plot, the book is fuelled by Bliss’s character, which provides shots of humor as her determination, cunning, and manipulative ways get her into, and out of, trouble, and by the lively and sexy chemistry between her and Neil. (Aug.)