The Dollmaker

Physician Dawn Hildegard, the 21-year-old heroine of this underwhelming serial killer yarn set in 1920 Newport, R.I., from Shamy (The Redpoint Crux), is struggling to find her feet in her profession, given the pervasive resistance to the idea of being treated by a woman. Her professional worries soon take a back seat to the concern caused by the arrival in Newport of the Dollmaker, an itinerant serial killer, “who killed young girls and hacked off their limbs, only to sew their different body parts back together.” Dawn involves herself in identifying the sadistic murderer after her closest friend, Rose Waterford, the prima ballerina in the company she herself dances with, disappears. Frantic to find Dawn before it’s too late, the physician allies herself with a new acquaintance, Gideon Hemsworth, whose attractive appearance unsettles her, and who has his own reasons for bringing the Dollmaker to justice. Romantic subplots, such as Dawn’s mother’s attempts to get her daughter wed, add little, and the final reveal disappoints. The execution falls short of the book’s promising premise, a pioneering female doctor forced to search for a murderer who may have abducted her friend. Fans of serial killer fiction can safely take a pass. Agent: Marisa Corvisiero, Corvisiero Literary. (Mar.)