THE BLACK SHEPHERD

Savile’s second Eurocrimes caper sets field agents Peter Ash and Francesca Varg against a nefarious quasi-religious cult that entices vulnerable young women away from their fragile support systems and into serious trouble.

The two agents’ connections to the case are very different. After a spell of rehab mandated by his last assignment (The Memory Man, 2019), Peter has returned to Tallinn, Estonia, in hopes of identifying an unknown body found in the woods. Frankie’s interest is considerably more personal. She’s searching for her cousin, Irma Lutz, who’s suddenly gone missing from the University of Technology in Tallinn. Peter benefits from every bit of intelligence and support Eurocrimes staffer Laura Byrne can provide him; Frankie, who’s disguised herself as Ceska Volk, a runaway waif living on the streets, is connected to her colleagues by nothing more tangible than a tracking device. Frankie has an unexpectedly illuminating conversation with Irma’s flatmate, Annja Rosen, who tells her that Irma had recently become obsessed with the seductive cult One World. But before Annja can meet with Peter, she’s killed by the same bent cop who first interviewed her when Irma disappeared and excised all mention of One World. Separated by her own wish from his unofficial partner, Peter joins forces instead with Mirjam Rebane, the local cop working the case of the body in the woods. Frankie, meanwhile, succeeds all too completely in insinuating herself into the clutches of John Shepherd, the self-proclaimed prophet of One World, who comes across “like a living TED Talk,” each one of them convinced that they’re the cat to the other’s mouse.

Savile does his best to add some novel twists to a depressingly familiar plot.