Summoning the Dead: A DI Bob Valentine Mystery

Black’s engrossing third outing for Scottish Det. Insp. Bob Valentine (after A Taste for Ashes) takes Valentine and his partner, Det. Sgt. Sylvia McCormack, to his hometown of Cumnock. Land developers have uncovered the mummified bodies of two boys, “their hands cable-tied, crammed into a rusty oil drum”; one has been strangled, the other bludgeoned. Both were murdered some 30 years earlier, and their identification links them to a cold case that was considered unsolvable. Interspersed with the contemporary action from Valentine’s point of view are harrowing first-person chapters told by one of the young victims. Black has created a sympathetic and fascinating character in Valentine, whose recovery from a near-fatal stabbing left him with an uncontrolled psychic connection with the victims in his cases. This ability gives Valentine and the reader a deeper understanding of the emotional lives of the deceased. Strong characters and tight pacing elevate this police procedural. A[em]gent: Donna Pudick, Parkeast Literary. (Dec.) [/em]