ANGEL FIRE

And now for something completely arctic. Miscione's predictable, flatly written first novel presents emotionally frozen Lydia Strong, who has not let herself feel anything since her mother’s murder by a serial killer 15 years ago. Lydia, who’s made herself into a consultant and bestselling author of true-crime books, retreats from New York to Santa Fe whenever she needs to regroup. This time, though, things are different: Her intuition tells her there’s a connection between the evisceration of a local dog and the disappearance of a couple of ex-druggies and a sometime working girl. Chief Simon Morrow disagrees, but Lydia calls in private eye Jeffrey Mark, who’s loved her since first meeting her as an FBI agent on her mother’s case. The threesome are soon awash in buried bodies, hearts bottled in formaldehyde, and blood-scrawled notes. At length Lydia’s intuition leads her to the Church of the Holy Name, where the priest’s orphaned nephew, the blind Juno, has a reputation for healing powers—although he insists that he doesn’t heal, God does. In fact, one young boy with a serious heart condition died soon after he visited him. Two more will follow before Lydia and the serial killer exchange biblical aphorisms over the phone, then meet at the Holy Name altar for a conflagrant confrontation.

Repressed rage and the social skills of a Sherman tank make Lydia unlovable to all but Jeffrey and her tin-eared author.