OUT OF THE DARKNESS

Cambridge free-lancer Liz Conners (And Soon I'll Come to Kill You, etc.)—now helping handsome, mega-selling true-crime author Griffin Marcus research his book on the serial killing of seven (or is it nine?) Catholic women found slashed on the banks of the Merrimack—soon finds herself doubting his premise: that they were slaughtered by Henry Kmiec, imprisoned for another, unsuccessful attempt. While wrestling with her detective lover Jack Lingemann's chauvinism, and with Marcus's put-downs of her murder reconstructions, Liz and the cop-sister of a victim turn up new evidence—then the sister is killed, Kmiec becomes a suicide in his cell, and another victim (same M.O.—multiple stab wounds to the chest and neck and a jaunty green bow tied above them) is found by the Merrimack. Now separated from Jack and romancing Marcus, Liz must confront several more deaths before the grisly, if none-too- believable, resolution. More interesting as an edgy commentary on ingrained chauvinism than as a whodunit; but, still, a thought-provoking effort from an able writer.