Where Petals Fall

April 27, 2009
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.

June 1, 2009
Five years after the serial killer called the Undertaker presumably plunged to his death when his car went over a cliff, a woman is murdered in the same style. Because details of his murders were never made public, forensic psychologist Jill Kennedy begins to doubt her profiling in the earlier case, joining her partner and lover Lancashire DCI Max Trentham in questioning the Undertakers death and wondering who else knew his MO. Jills handsome, footloose new neighbor becomes the prime suspect until a second similar murder is committed while he is in custody, throwing Jill and Max into a quandary. Dogged police work, a little luck, and Jills keen intuition, of course, save the day. And if the resolution seems abrupt in this third in the series (following A Darker Side, 2008), the characterizations are fine, with the warmly realistic relationship between Jill and Max especially appealing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)