Hell: A Sam Becket Thriller

At the outset of Norman’s contrived fifth Sam Becket thriller (after 2010’s Caged), a carefully wrapped human heart is found floating in the African-American Miami detective’s swimming pool. Sam’s Caucasian psychologist wife, Grace, immediately suspects they’re being targeted by her stepbrother, Jerome Cooper (aka Cal the Hater), a psychopathic racist who kidnapped their infant son two years earlier in Caged. Sam’s inquiries as part of the Miami police’s Violent Crimes Unit take on a new urgency after another well-preserved heart turns up in a luxury hotel’s pool and a third is deposited in the Beckets’ bathtub. Norman does a good job presenting Sam’s extended multiethnic family, whose members are particularly supportive of Grace as she faces jail time for a crime she committed under extreme stress. But a convoluted plot, a snarled skein of interwoven relationships, and a wildly improbable conclusion make this a less than satisfying read. (Dec.)