One Through the Heart

February 4, 2013
An unusual plot distinguishes Russell’s third procedural featuring San Francisco homicide inspector Ben Raveneau (after 2012’s Counterfeit Road). The disappearance of grad student Ann Coryell in 2002 has always haunted the inspector, who was the last to see her alive and missed a late-night phone call from her asking for help. A decade later, the discovery of a bomb shelter, found to contain 14 skulls, near where she was last seen reopens the cold case and its psychic wounds. The detective comes to wonder whether the tragedy was linked to Coryell’s area of study, the genocide of the Native Americans, a crime that she believed the U.S. still needs to come to terms with. After a call threatening violence in retaliation for 19th-century American expansion, the search for the truth about what happened to Coryell becomes a race against the clock. Polished writing and well-constructed situations make this one of Russell’s better books. Agent: Philip Spitzer, Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency.

March 1, 2013
Nothing turns a cold case hotter than two partial skeletons and 14 skulls. When pop historian and author Albert Lash, suffering from ALS, sells his San Francisco house and moves to an assisted living facility, the new tenants are disconcerted to find a gruesomely decorated bomb shelter under the floorboards of the garden shed, which is scheduled for demolition. Over a dozen skulls are neatly stacked against a wall, two partial skeletons lie beside them, and there is a filthy mattress with attached restraints and copious blood splatters. Could this be where Ann Coryell, a graduate student working on her thesis about the effect of unreconciled genocide on the collective unconscious, died 10 years ago? Lash, her mentor and lover, had been considered a suspect. But the original detectives on the case, one a drunk and the other now retired, made no headway. Homicide cop Ben Raveneau, now assigned to cold cases (Counterfeit Road, 2012, etc.), still has nightmares about missing a call from Ann that might have saved her. Ann's mother still suffers guilt over refusing her pleas for help. Brandon Lindsley, who harbors a grudge against Lash for reneging on an agreement to collaborate with him on three books, leads Raveneau to members of a minicult devoted to Ann's theories. In short order, the FBI gets involved, along with a Missouri sheriff. Incendiary bombs set much of the California forest ablaze, and Lash nearly succumbs to radiation poisoning. Worse, nobody--not the FBI, the veteran cops or the cultists--confides everything Raveneau needs to know. More must die, pseudonyms reveal their secrets and all those bones finally get identified before Raveneau can settle down for wine and pizza with his girlfriend. Seasoned pro Russell showcases sturdy police work on a complicated case.

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February 1, 2013
San Francisco cop Ben Raveneau is expert at cracking cold cases, but his latest may prove the one that finally defeats him. Ten years ago, grad student Ann Coryell disappeared. Renowned academic Albert Lash, who was her Svengali-like professor and sometime lover, claimed she disappeared after a lover's quarrel. But when her headless body was found months later, there were no clues and nothing to prove Lash was involved, so the case was shelved. Then, 10 years after her death, an underground bomb shelter containing a bloody mattress and over a dozen skulls is discovered on Lash's property. Raveneau is brought in to determine if one of the skulls is Coryell's. What he discovers is a bizarre, tangled, surreal plot involving a plan to wreak revenge on the city of San Francisco, a corrupt cop, a string of violent murders, and a now terminally ill and guilt-ridden Lash. Solid writing, a twisted, keep-'em-guessing plot, and a likable rogue hero drive this entertaining thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)