Close to the Bone

August 18, 2014
At the start of Black’s intricately plotted seventh Theresa MacLean mystery (after 2013’s The Price of Innocence), Theresa arrives early one morning at Cleveland’s cash-strapped Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s office, where she literally steps into a pool of blood seeping from the fatal wounds of deskman Darryl Johnson. More homicides rapidly follow elsewhere, and Theresa, an intrepid 12-year veteran of the Trace Evidence Department, connects the killings to the decade-old strangling of coworker Diane Allman. Theresa descends Nancy Drew–like into creepy morgue vaults, eludes a lascivious morgue assistant, and ingeniously extricates herself from the trunk of the killer’s car, but she overlooks the close attention police sergeant Louis Shephard is paying to the case—and to her. Black, who is a forensic scientist, certainly knows her field; readers should be prepared for medical minutiae and graphic autopsy details that tend toward grisly overkill. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary Agency.

September 2, 2013
Romance comes to Theresa MacLean for the first time since her fiancé’s death, in Black’s satisfying sixth mystery featuring the Cleveland forensic scientist (after Blunt Impact). From the moment Theresa meets David Madison she’s captivated. That the feeling appears to be mutual, though, only serves to make the savvy crime fighter suspicious. Questions plague her. How does he know the murder victim at whose funeral they meet? Is David connected to a 25-year-old fire in Cleveland State University student housing—a fire that’s somehow connected to a series of explosions she’s currently investigating? Are these explosions related to the sudden rash of untimely deaths among a group of old college friends? Everywhere she looks, Theresa sees vague links but no hard evidence. With only her gut to go on, she—and the reader—scud through a series of devilishly clever blind alleys and red herrings, some more contrived than others, until everything ties together. Agent: Vicky Bijur, Vicky Bijur Literary Agency.