Police Procedural

Whip-smart, odd-couple arson investigators Andrew Walker and Walter Sharpe are back, this time probing a string of fires across LA. The worst is a blaze that has taken out part of a major highway. In a city that lives in its car, traffic that’s even more snarled is a disaster, and the investigators relish the chance to travel by helicopter while they sniff out—sometimes literally—clues and, at least on Sharpe’s part, exasperate all around them. Fans of the series will enjoy reacquainting themselves with a lovable criminal from the previous books (Ashes Never Lie, 2024; Malibu Burning, 2023), Danny Cole, who is continuing his revenge against a corporate monster. Tense scenes, some (awesome!), Mission Impossible-type capers, and the wonderful arson-fighting duo of Walker and Sharpe make this an exciting, absorbing addition to the series. Readers need not have read the previous books, but it adds to the experience.

Gardner Camden has found his perfect home in the FBI’s PAR, or Patterns and Recognition division. Like the department itself, Camden is thought of by other agents as weird, and it doesn’t help that he almost had PAR disbanded by making a terrible mistake that’s kept secret till near the end of the book. Still, he’s brilliant at noticing what nobody else does and relentless at finding the worst of the worst of criminals. He found one of those years before, dead in a fire. But in the case that opens this fascinating thriller, the same man is found dead at a crime scene, with numbers scrawled on his body. Next more killers are found murdered, also with messages to PAR, or maybe to Camden, at the scene. Finding out who is killing serial killers, and why, takes Camden and his lovable team on cross country treks and through psychological torture as the suspect won’t hesitate to go after all the team holds dear. Camden’s first-person narration brings readers inside the head of a steadfast but quirky man (“I’ve been called…Unconcerned. On the spectrum. A weirdo”) as he puzzles out wicked and tangled crimes and the minds behind them. McMahon’s debut novel, the first book in his P.T. Marsh series, was a New York Times Top 10 Crime Novel and a finalist for both the Edgar Award and the ITW Thriller Award, and his other books have been lauded as well. This is more great stuff and a must for your TBR pile.

With a shooting in her past, Liverpool Police detective Sheridan Holler is already known to new chief inspector Hill Knowles when the no-nonsense woman takes the job. Sheridan’s first assignment under the new boss is related to a cold case: Ronald Parks was accused of killing his son, but was acquitted. Now two bodies have been found on the local beach. One is tied to a statue, the other buried so that he drowned when the tide came in. Sheridan must inform the victims’ next of kin, a young bookshop owner, of the deaths, and she becomes central to the case, suffering further losses and dreading the police’s next knock on the door. Given the circumstances, but also because of her doggedness at the job, Sheridan relentlessly pursues all the tenuous clues that come up. Nevertheless it seems that this case may go unsolved. While readers soak in the rich details of life as a year-rounder in an English seaside town, and Sheridan’s loving wife who’s sometimes exasperated at her partner’s dedication to the madness that is police work, Sheridan continues to pick away at the case, leading to a shocking conclusion. Note that there is particularly awful sexual abuse here. A startling and engrossing whodunit.