THE HOLIDAY MURDERS

When Sheridan, Wyoming, is rocked by a series of rape-murders linked to holidays from Valentine's Day to New Year's, hyperactive medical-examiner Dr. Samantha Turner painstakingly fits together the forensic evidence that enables her dimwitted police colleagues to make an arrest after Sam bushwacks the murderer herself. But then Sam insists that the evidence against the suspect, who confesses to six killings, actually clears him of one. Getting no sympathy from anxious city fathers—several of whom seem to have been involved with the telltale victim—she tips her hand to the second killer, not realizing that her only remaining ally, her late husband's son Derek, has his own secret interest in the case—and, unfortunately, in her. A determined and surprisingly successful attempt to compete with Patricia Cornwell. Sam Turner's first case leaves you hungry for more.