cover image Where Petals Fall

Where Petals Fall

Shirley Wells, . . Soho Constable, $25 (265pp) ISBN 978-1-56947-572-0

At the start of Wells's workmanlike third police procedural (after 2008's A Darker Side ), two boys stumble on a body, its neck slashed and wrapped in a white sheet, in a quarry. Five years earlier, forensic psychologist Jill Kennedy and Lancashire Det. Chief Insp. Max Trentham brought an end to the rampage of the serial killer known as the Undertaker, who slashed the throats of his four victims, all childless married career women. The prime suspect, Eddie Marshall, died after a police car chase, but his corpse was never recovered. The discovery of this new victim wrapped in shrouds, the Undertaker's trademark, prompts Kennedy and Trentham to question their original conclusions about Marshall's guilt, as well as explore who might have known enough about the details of the original murders to commit copycat crimes. Neither the interplay between the main characters nor the solution is particularly inspired or innovative. (May)