The Levels

Readers will struggle to sympathize with the less than rounded three main characters in this gritty crime thriller from Cregan, the pseudonym of John Rickards (Winter’s End), though he does create a plausible picture of hell on Earth. The lowest rung of Newport City, “the fifth largest urban sprawl in the U.S.,” is Keating Levels, a horrific housing project that’s been virtually abandoned by the municipality’s leaders and is rumored to house carriers of the bubonic plague. Former CIA agent Nathan Turner flees into the Levels after someone identified as him is killed. There, he encounters Ghost, a teenager, also seeking refuge after the disappearance of her father and brother. Meanwhile, suspended cop Kate Friedman is attacked by the Sixth Avenue Beast, a serial killer targeting bankers, and ends up joining a private effort to track him down. The unifying element to the three intersecting stories will strike many genre fans as nothing new. (Nov.)