The Beautiful Dead

September 26, 2016
This is one exclusive that Eve Singer, an attractive iWitness News crime reporter, doesn’t want, in this taut thriller from British author Bauer (The Shut Eye). While covering the stabbing of a young woman just feet from throngs of London Christmas shoppers, Eve catches the eye of the murderer, who decides she would be the perfect amanuensis to aid his grandiose series of gruesome “exhibitions.” Bauer puts the sympathetic, conflicted Eve and the heart-tuggingly demented father for whom she is caring in escalating jeopardy, along with several memorable minor players, including Det. Sgt. Emily Aguda, whose small size leads people to underestimate her formidable skills (she’s a black belt in kickboxing and Judo). Though less of the killer, who’s pretty much a stock type, would have been more, readers will root for Bauer’s spunky heroine on this suspenseful slay ride through a snow-globe London. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory & Company (U.K.).

November 1, 2016
Award-winning novelist Bauerwinner of the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger in the Library Award for outstanding body of workreturns with the Bridget Jonesflavored tale of Eve Singer, a journalist struggling to nail a tough job while a younger, more glamorous wannabe nips at her heels. Adding to Singer's load is the care of her dad, who lives with her and suffers from dementia. Things don't look good, but Eve's luck turns, in a macabre way, when a serial killer decides that she should be his media contact. Singer and the police butt heads while pursuing an increasingly unhinged man who seems to relish the spotlight and who doesn't hesitate to draw the journalist into his exhibitionist antics. Readers who like police procedurals with a snarky, jaded onlooker on the side will enjoy this thriller, which is something between Tana French and Karin Slaughter and will work for readers who stay up late reading either of those authors.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2016

Winner of the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger in the Library Award, British author Bauer returns with a spine tingler featuring TV crime reporter Eve Singer, covering a serial killer who treats each murder as an art exhibition. Alas, it seems he wants to put Eve on display.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2016
A serial killer menaces London in general, and a TV journalist in particular, in Bauer's latest gorefest.The mayhem begins with the stabbing of a woman who made the mistake of working on a Saturday when her office building was deserted--except for a verse-spouting serial killer. First to arrive on the scene of the murder is Eve Singer, who works for one of London's TV news networks specializing in "if it bleeds it leads" reporting. Lately, Eve's career has been flagging--she's pushing 30 and a brunette, and her boss keeps threatening to replace her with a younger blonde. At home, Eve's problems are also escalating: she's the sole caretaker for her once stalwart father, Duncan, whose dementia has gotten out of control. Other voices take up the narrative, including the killer's, several of his victims, police officers, and Eve's neighbors. The killer, apparently of aristocratic stock, inhabits a crumbling mansion, supporting himself and his grisly pursuits by selling off family art treasures. He cared for his own elderly parent until her death, and somehow no one wondered what happened to her body. (As in Psycho, mummified Mom hasn't left home.) His homicidal compulsion appears to spring from overhearing doctors say, after a heart transplant in childhood, that he was "living on borrowed time." Every murder, according to his twisted logic, is another extension of the loan. At first he welcomes the publicity afforded by Eve's lurid reports on his handiwork, but as she agrees to cooperate with a police blackout, risking her job, he turns on her. (And, since he followed her home one night, he knows where she lives.) As the murders--each staged as an "exhibition"--mount up, the killer's cat-and-mouse game with the police and Eve grows breathlessly suspenseful even as we suspect we are being lured into the clutches of yet another thriller with a contrived and predictable ending. Bauer's way with character and repartee helps to keep our interest in what would otherwise be pretty standard fare.

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