This is the first book in the Brigid Quinn series.  A second book, FEAR OF DARKNESS, came out last January.  Brigid is a non-nonsense fifty-something who is a retired FBI agent specializing in serial killers, and it is the personality of Brigid that makes this book interesting.

Secretive about her past, even with her husband, she is struggling to make her marriage work, while at the same time hunting down a serial killer who was responsible for the death of a colleague when Brigid was on the job.  Brigid is an interesting mix of someone who wants to live a normal life, but not enough to give up those character traits and practices that make her different.

The plot is engaging; the characters are well drawn.  Reading the first book will make you want to keep up with the series.  It is also refreshing to have an older protagonist who is still physically and mentally at the peak of her abilities.

I admit up front that I am a fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels.  Although more an adventure story than a mystery, there is always a puzzle and often a surprise ending to keep the mystery fan reading along until the end.

In this book a sniper has taken a shot at the President of France, and it is believed that he may be someone Reacher put in prison many years before when he was in the Army.  For this reason he is forcibly recruited by a vague American security agency to go to Europe and help apprehend the sniper before he strikes again.  Reacher gradually comes to suspect that things are not exactly as they seem.

There are surprises and numerous twists and turns on the road to a solution. One might wish that the final confrontation with the sniper were a bit more climactic, but Child pulls out a surprise at the end that allows the story to finish on a high note.  This book is worth reading, although if you have not read Lee Child before, I would start with  book from earlier in the series.

Sometimes famous and well-respected writers manage to slip beneath my radar, and such is the case with Steve Hamilton.  An Edgar Award winner for his Alex McKnight series, I hadn’t heard of him until a fellow writer told me I just had to read him.

I started with THE LOCK ARTIST which is a sort of coming of age novel about Mike, who undergoes tragedy as a young boy and as a result never speaks.  Discovering a natural talent for opening locks, he is forced into a life of crime, all the time hoping to escape and return to the girl he loves. A wonderful book, this won the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

I intend to read some more Steve Hamilton and highly recommend that you give him a try.