A Killing of Angels

In Rhodes’s disappointing follow-up to 2013’s Crossbones Yard, psychologist Alice Quentin and London police detective Don Burns get on the track of a serial killer who targets financiers affiliated with the Angel Bank and who leaves white feathers and an angel picture at each crime scene. The police believe the killer might be a disgruntled ex-employee or someone who blames bankers for the recent financial crisis, but Alice suspects more personal motives. Still traumatized by the crossbones case, she struggles to manage difficult family interactions, a disturbed client turned stalker, and her fledgling relationship with Andrew Piernan, a charity fund-raiser with connections to the Angel Bank. She also senses a link between high-class prostitute Poppy Beckwith and the murder victims. For a forensic psychologist consulting with the police, Alice shows a surprising lack of insight into why she and others act as they do. The book’s action and its characters’ conversations are rarely given much context, and repetitive but elliptical references to the previous novel may annoy some readers. Agent: Teresa Chris, Teresa Chris Literary Agency (U.K.). (Feb.)