Flash Point

August 1, 2016
The massacre of 21 people by assailants with different bladed weapons at a Washington, D.C., bank propels Marshall’s absorbing third mystery featuring FBI profiler Jenna Ramey (after 2015’s Double Vision). The organized group of killers, who take no money, leave a note at the crime scene containing obscure literary references and a warning that they will strike again. One attacker tells the lone survivor to pass on a cryptic message: “treat all trivial things in life very seriously.” To prevent further deaths, Jenna’s team, the Behavioral Analysis Unit, must solve the puzzles posed by the killers, doing so while fighting a turf battle with Homeland Security. Jenna turns to a socially awkward former patient as a literary consultant. Meanwhile, Jenna believes that she and three-year-old daughter are under threat from Jenna’s psychopathic mother, who was recently released from prison. Adding spice is Jenna’s special gift, grapheme-color synesthesia, which allows her to use colors she associates with people and situations to help her determine the truth. Agent: Rachel Eckstrom, Irene Goodman Literary Agency.

September 15, 2016
FBI profiler Jenna Ramey uses her synesthesia to help her interpret information in a way that most people can't access. Combine that with the deep psychological insight she acquired being raised by a clinically sociopathic mother and you have quite a crime-solving secret weapon. But even Ramey can't do it all on her own. When a group of black-clad assassins use the methods and monikers of classic literary characters to brutally murder everyone in a Washington, D.C., bank, Ramey and her team are called in to profile the killers. Soon another act of similarly staged domestic terror takes place, and Ramey wonders how far down the rabbit hole she'll have to descend to find the true identity of these monsters. Librarians will love the cat-and-mouse wordplay of the literary allusions, and series fans will be delighted with the creepy surprise that the last chapter promises for book four.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)