Perfection

Walter Satterthwait gives his readers a feast of different flavors. His modern-day private-eye series was followed by his historical mysteries. In real life, Lizzie Borden may actually have killed her parents, but Satterthwait turns her into a high-spirited amateur sleuth. Satterthwait's Left Bank in 1920s Paris is alive with artists like Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. And he has even dug up Hitler and his true-to-life Nazi pals (but, never fear, the good guys still win).

Now Satterthwait turns his hand to this terrific thriller, Perfection, with a pair of true-to-life police detectives for us to root for. In a small Florida city, a most baffling killer insists that his victims meet very specific criteria. Satterthwait teases the reader---and police detectives Sophia Tregaskis and Jim Fallon too; he shows us the killer in his own home, reliving the satisfaction of his latest murder. We watch him scouting his neighboring supermarket for the next person who will require "perfection."

Even childhood episodes that made him the monster he is don't help us---or the two police detectives---learn who and where he is. When the pair finally does track him through his past, chance---or the devil---stacks the odds against them with a vicious hurricane and the thrill of uncertainty until the very end.