I got this slightly-battered softcover from the Book Cellar. It's a follow-on to The Devil's Workshop, which I had mixed feelings about, but I'm still curious to find out what happens next - grisly though that's likely to be!

Later: OK, I have a fairly strong stomach for grisly crime stories, but this series has gone to really insane lengths - without adding any good characterizations to help balance the narrative or provide some relief from the bleaker aspects. The ongoing tribulations of Walter Day (whose fate at the end of this book is unknown, though the preview pages for the next book let us know what we'd already suspected of his wildly depressing situation), the career setbacks of Nevil Hammersmith (initially my favorite character, but I fear he hasn't developed as I'd have hoped, and shows remarkable thick-headedness for someone so good at detecting), and the nightmarish fates of the many secondary characters - it's quite a downer.

I'll give the author credit for atmosphere, from the use of lots of children's poems and songs as chapter-headers to the criminal's-point-of-view scenes to the reactions of the medical examiner and police to the discovery of yet more mangled corpses and wrecked families. It just struck me as going too deep into blackness with very little in the way of catharsis.

I left this book on the book-swap shelf in the Tyngsboro post office lobby; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in MA here.]

*** Released for the 2018 Thanksgiving release challenge. ***

*** Released for the 2018 The The release challenge. ***