Pre-Owned Detective Series: A Cruel Season for Dying (Hardcover)

Publishers Weekly,Assured prose helps redeem a routine plot in Moore's mystery debut, which pits Japanese-American NYPD lieutenant James Sakura against yet another deranged serial killer. Sakura's adversary seems to target gay victims, who are found dead of unknown causes with swan feathers inserted into slits in their backs to simulate angel wings. The high-profile crimes focus both media and departmental pressures on Sakura, who races the clock to stop the murderer from killing again. A forensic psychiatrist and his disgraced former partner assist in developing a profile, a task that becomes more challenging when the MO appears to change. Promising leads come from a Yeshiva University professor, who directs the team to clues from the apocryphal Book of Enoch. Predictably, those close to the homicide detective fall into jeopardy. Flashbacks to Sakura's Japanese upbringing and his relationship with his blind wife provide glimpses of hidden depths, but these suggestive elements contribute little to his investigative approach, which ultimately depends too much on chance. Despite the novel aspects of Sakura's struggles to live as part of two cultures, fans of such serial-killer classics as Thomas Harris's Red Dragon may find this effort overly formulaic. Hopefully, in any future books about this sleuth who for now remains more enigmatic than intriguing, Moore will couple his writing talent with more creative story lines. Agent, Mel Berger. (June 4) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved