A GRAVE TALENT

After the third body of a strangled child is found on the grounds of self-proclaimed feudal lord John Tyler, the police focus on the members of his closed community—especially on a woman named Vaun Adams, a brilliant painter who's already served eight years for murdering a young girl. But Vaun's supposed suicide attempt during a furious storm doesn't fool San Francisco cop Kate Martinelli, who— with the help of Vaun's beloved therapist Gerry Bruckner, Kate's no- nonsense partner Alonzo Hawkin, and her live-in Lee Cooper, a psychiatrist who works with artists—rescues Vaun, brings her out of her catatonic withdrawal, and sets her up as a Judas goat for her murderous former lover Andy Lewis. Unusually sensitive and densely imagined—you really can feel Vaun's torment—despite King's first-novelist habit of explaining her characters a little too generously.