The third in Monsour's series featuring St. Paul, Minn., homicide detective Sgt. Paris Murphy (after 2004's Cold Blood
) again proves the author's ability to craft characters whose deep creepiness is slowly, lovingly revealed. English professor Serene Ransom is nursing a late-night drink and musing on the sexual possibilities of hunky young bartender Enda "Catch" Clancy at a bar in the icy Iron Range area of northeastern Minnesota, when a robbery interrupts her thoughts. After a little back and forth, Catch and Serene both shoot the would-be robber with their respective firearms. They can't go to the cops, Catch says, so he pulls up his minimal stakes and after ditching the body they head to Serene's cat-infested St. Paul apartment. They spend their days having sex, pausing only for Catch to kick a few cats and eat sandwiches and Serene to recite a little poetry. Meanwhile, Paris is spending time with her husband, Jack, trying to repair their tattered marriage. Marital difficulties plus her father's heart problems keep distracting her from a new case involving the two missing Iron Range men—the dead robber and Catch. The rest of the book is taken up with Paris and her partner, Max Castro, stalking Catch and Serene, both of whom are more crazy than evil, caught in an intertwined, tragic, downward spiral that they are unable to either halt or alter. Agent, Esther Newberg. (May)
