A brilliant law student (still very much perturbed by her father’s mysterious murder and slightly obsessed with serial killers )manages to find herself an internship at Moscow’s police headquarters .As bodies (both of unsolved murders in the past as in the present )turn up in different parts of Moscow, Masha discovers a strange pattern relating to medieval texts,maps, New Rome and Heavenly Jerusalem. The storyline is good, the characters are believable and it is a new twist on “the serial killer “.There is however one comment I would like to make, as Moscow plays such a prominent role in this story,a map of the city would have been helpful,handy…As it is,all the characters revolve around maps with different gates, walls and parks…but the reader(not a resident of Moscow)feels a bit lost.

Earl Marcus returns to his birthplace, a very rural area in North Georgia, after rumours of sightings of his father(after his death )have reached him. He left this area, his father and especially a rather weird (we’re talking ordeals by snakes here)and intense evangelical church community where his father was a very charismatic preacher and leader, some 30 years previously. Not much has changed,the church still has fervent followers, moonshine is still drunk and the whole area still feels pretty isolated from the rest of the world. To make matters worse, young girls go missing and return completely disoriented, anxious and with strange marks on their body.

This is a very atmospheric novel,one can feel the claustrophobic sensation and the threat of approaching thunderstorms.But as the story evolves,the storyline starts to unravel and the last half/quarter of the book could do with some serious editing. Pity…

A woman is abducted in France. Her friend finds her cell phone and with this information he follows her back home to Berlin. There the chase for the abducter, who turns out to be a serial killer, starts in earnest. The storyline is good, up to a certain point,and then it starts to wander. But the style,the writing is lacking something. Perhaps it is due to the translation (it was originally published in German).All in all,after a good start, a bit of a disappointment.