This book reminds me of James Patterson before he started mass producing. I enjoyed the dysfunction and surprise. ( )

Detective Teddy Camel used to be known as the human lie detector, until too much liquor and too many regrets did the machine in. Now Teddy is on the Gaetan case, obsessed with Mary’s beauty and the truth he knows she is not telling. What happened in that house? Teddy is determined to find out – even if it is a truth too horrifying to speak…

Martin is very good at depicting depravity; this guy is sick. In the beginning he uses a good device that kind of falls flat in the end…the killer is holding a girl’s hand while he studies the house of his next victim. It turns out that he’s just holding her hand without the rest of her attached. At the end of a book he kidnaps a child and is portrayed holding her hand. Of course the rest of the girl is attached this time. It kind of is a let down. The cop is a good drunk though; just hanging onto his job for the pension. His superiors are coming down on him because he’s slacking off and maybe they’ll just take away that pension of his. The put him onto this case to make him actually work. A reasonably good thriller, but Martin has done better. ( )

Passably written but transparent and overly used plot. ( )