Hearts of Sand

Starred review from July 1, 2013
As the sophisticated plot of the 28th entry (after 2012’s Blood in the Water) in this superior fair-play whodunit series shows, Haddam is still going strong. As a teen, debutante Chapin Waring veered into a life of crime, pulling off violent bank robberies that left corpses in their wake. But before she could be caught, she vanished, only to resurface 30 years later in her affluent hometown of Alwych, Conn. She’s soon discovered with a knife in her back on the floor of the uninhabited house she grew up in, which her family has scrupulously maintained. Waring’s murder, no less a sensation than her teenage crime wave, leads the hapless local police to send for brilliant detective Gregor Demarkian, who insists that it would be premature to link the present-day killing with the bank heists three decades ago. Demarkian methodically reads, talks, and thinks his way to a logical solution that few will anticipate. Agent: Don Maass, Donald Maass Literary Agency.