ARTEMESIA

In this mystery, a researcher and a police deputy have inexplicable ties to a serial killer in New York state.

Sage Stevenson had been a cutter when she was a teen. But she hasn’t harmed herself in over a decade and is now busy with her postdoctoral research in paleography. That’s why she can’t explain the scars on her skin—brand new ones she’s never seen before. In Sage’s city, Savanaugh, New York, Deputy Marquis Marchant is just one of the cops at a brutal murder scene. The killer had severed the victim’s limbs, sewn them together, and carved unknown symbols into the skin (“Some of the markings—especially in the middle of the man’s back—looked like crude video game icons. Space Invaders or something like that”). Marq wants to investigate but finds himself sidelined courtesy of his right arm’s bizarre numbness, rendering the limb virtually useless. After the killer strikes again, Sage calls the police; she reputedly has had a vision of the murderer and is certain the “unique markings” on the victim’s skin are identical to hers. Only Marq, it seems, believes her, and the two soon learn they have a shocking connection to the killer as well as to a mysterious woman named Artemesia Burton. In this grim and engrossing tale, Mallery centers on three laudable characters—Sage, Marq, and the killer. Sage fears that she’s schizophrenic, while Marq’s co-workers deride him for his book smarts. The murderer, too, proves surprisingly engaging; he’s frighteningly meticulous but vulnerable, as when a not-so-simple body dump shows how easily he could get caught. Notwithstanding severed limbs, a meat cleaver, and blood galore, the novel somewhat mitigates the violence with a taut narrative that deftly highlights both the cast’s external and internal pain. A relatively early flashback pulls readers into the killer’s past, a darkly intriguing turn that, while quite revealing, stirs up further questions. The story’s latter half, in particular, hints at supernatural elements, but the author coats them in ambiguity until the sensational denouement.

A searing, curious look at ritualistic homicides boosts this striking thriller.