Incentive for Death

Former lawyer Spoonhour’s lackluster debut traces a series of mysterious deaths in connection with a shady company that purchases life insurance policies. D.C. Metropolitan Police detectives Mac Burke and Oliver Shaw are dispatched to the offices of Gideon & McCaffery, an influential Washington law firm, after its managing partner, Weldon Van Damm, is found dead at his desk. A medical examiner notices the small puncture wound on Van Damm’s body and determines that someone injected him with a lethal substance, leading Burke and Shaw to launch a homicide inquiry. The plot thickens when another man drops dead at a local baseball game with a similar wound, and Burke and Shaw learn that both he and Van Damm had recently sold their life insurance policies to the same viatical firm. As they dig deeper, the pair links more deaths to the firm, and race to keep the body count from rising. Spoonhour fails to whip up much suspense from his premise, and the circumstances of several killings strain credulity. There’s little to distinguish this rote legal thriller from similar fare. (Oct.)