A Killer's Guide to Good Works: A Val Cameron Mystery

Costa's engrossing second Val Cameron mystery (after Practical Sins for Cold Climates) finds Val back in her native Manhattan, toiling as a senior editor for Schlesinger Press. When Val's best friend, Adrian Bale, the curator at a private antiquities museum on the Upper West Side, phones Val with news that she has discovered a priceless artifact, Val jumps in a cab and hurries over to the museum. On arrival, Val spots an ambulance outside the museum and is told by a cop that she can't enter the building. She later learns that Adrian has been murdered and the mysterious artifact has disappeared. The intricate and twisty plot involves a religious cult with a vague plan to bring about the end times, a monk who is more than a monk, a delightful 13-year-old girl, and an annoying author. Costa's prose is dense and literary, and she has a gift for wielding dark humor and depicting emotion, such as the waves of grief that follow a sudden bereavement. Readers will look forward to Val's further adventures. (Sept.)