Two in the Hat Book

"A major spike in gang homicides has Boston on edge, leaving a growing body count of bangers in its wake and the city's police and DA's office scrambling to catch up. Even the mayor's Street Saviors task force of ex-cons, devoted to steering kids out of the thug life, are working overtime to stop the bloodshed. But who will stop the even greater threat that's about to descend when a murderous psychopath steps out of the past?" Memories of the infamous Blood Bath Killer still loom large, especially for homicide detective Angel Alves, who helped bring down the multiple-murderer whose rampage shocked the city. So when a pair of students turn up bizarrely slain, Alves fears that another serial killer is stalking Boston. A fear that becomes fact when his ex-partner, Wayne Mooney, recognizes the murders as the work of the Prom Night Killer - whose unsolved crimes have haunted Mooney for a decade. Now, with hands-on assistant DA Conrad Darget backing them, Alves and Mooney set out to stop grim history from repeating itself. But matching wits with a twisted mind is a dangerous game. Especially when there are no rules - and your allies really may be your enemies.

Publishers Weekly

Yessayan, the former chief prosecutor for the gang unit of the Suffolk County (Mass.) district attorney’s office, doesn’t make the most of his professional expertise in this improbable serial killer yarn, the sequel to 8 in the Box. In Franklin Park, where off-duty Boston police detective Angel Alves is coaching a kids’ football team, one of his players stumbles on a dead woman dressed in a fancy gown. Angel finds the body of a man in a tuxedo nearby. Both are posed in a manner identical to the victims of the Prom Night Killer, who’d been dormant for so long that the authorities assumed he was dead, in prison, or retired. Angel’s old sergeant, Wayne Mooney, the lead investigator in the Prom Night Killer case, shares closely held information that enables the pair to rule out a copycat. The main mystery’s unsurprising resolution goes hand in hand with the plot’s less than plausible major shock twist. This is for those who prefer sensationalism to realism in their suspense fiction. (Apr.)