Witch Hunt

Richard O’Rawe (the Ructions O’Hare novels) teams up with his daughter, Bernadette, for this sinuous police procedural, the first in a new series. London DS Grace O’Malley receives a call from a man who identifies himself as Matthew Hopkins, a real-life 17th-century religious zealot known as the Witchfinder General who killed more than 100 alleged witches across England. The caller threatens to “unleash his wrath” on the entire world, then tells Grace where to find her husband, assistant police commissioner Dominic Boswell. Grace rushes to the coordinates—an apartment in Mayfair—where she discovers Dominic cheating on her with a sex worker. Horrified, Grace is then called to the scene of an apparent Hopkins-inspired murder on the Thames, in which a woman was burned alive in a boat. Fearing that she may have a serial killer on her hands, Grace quickly shifts her search for the Hopkins copycat into high gear, but her inquiry gets complicated when forensic evidence suggests the killer might be a very powerful public figure. The O’Rawes know how to keep readers in suspense, serving up surprising twists and copious cliffhangers on the way to a satisfying solution. This bodes well for future series installments. Agent: Lisa Moylett, Coombs Moylett Maclean. (May)