Kill Me Once

Osborne’s derivative first novel introduces FBI agent Dana Whitestone, who lost her parents to a murderer when she was only four. Whitestone, a hotshot who rose through the ranks quickly and has a legendary profiler as a partner, gets on the trail of a serial killer known as the Cleveland Slasher. The killer, who calls himself Nathan Stiedowe, bases his crimes on the real-life butcheries of Richard Speck and Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, among others. Osborne offers neither well-developed characters nor clever plot twists amid the graphically described atrocities of a sadist indistinguishable from others of his ilk in this subgenre. Readers should be prepared for groan-worthy revelations and purple prose (“The sun was the sizzling yolk in the centre of a robin’s-egg sky, beating down on his head like a solar jackhammer wielded by an especially malevolent god”). Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Associates. (July)