THE SERIAL KILLER GUIDE TO SAN FRANCISCO

The guide who launched the SF Killer Crime Tours turns her attention to sleuthing, bolstered in both capacities by a most improbable qualification.

Capricorn Sanzio’s grandfather, William Sanzio, was convicted years ago of being Overkill Bill, a serial killer who took an exceptionally thorough approach to his profession. Now, years after her grandpa died in prison still protesting his innocence, it looks very much as if someone is imitating Overkill Bill’s not-just-dead-but-really-dead approach to homicide. When Sylvia Clement, the old-money mother of Capri’s cheating ex, Todd, announces that she’s done paying tuition for her granddaughter Morgan’s graduate school, Capri, desperate to raise money, hatches the idea of writing a true-crime book about Overkill Bill and his copycat. No sooner has Capri reached out to homicide inspector Dan Petito to get his take on the murder of socialite Katherine Harper than the copycat claims a second victim: Sylvia Clement, whom both Capri and Morgan had abundant reason to want dead. Once Capri’s motive switches from financing Morgan’s education to keeping her daughter and herself out of prison, her detective skills get sharper, and she’s willing to learn from any source, even a YouTube tutorial on picking locks. Despite its trendy title, this is really a story about family ties, and the complicated connection that emerges between murderer and murderees is both ingenious and deeply felt. Capri even gets another crack at solving the mystery of Overkill Bill in an epilogue that’s as heartwarming as it is anticlimactic.

Just the thing for readers who want to learn about all those other hearts that got left in San Francisco.