The Repenting Serpent

DCI Michael Yorke and his team of DS Jake Pettnan and DI Emma Gardner are all at a bloody crime scene.  A woman has had her chest cut open and her heart removed.  In addition, two slices of flesh have been removed from her thighs.  The team all know the victim because she had been married to one of their own; DS Iain Brookes.  The police had received an anonymous call about the body.

Not long after attending the scene Brookes calls Yorke to inform him that his son is missing.  Fortunately, when they get to his home, the boy is back.  After questioning Brookes is ruled out as a possible suspect.  However, a print at the scene turns up a viable suspect.  Unfortunately, he is not where he should be.

The following morning pathologist Dr. Patricia Wileman gives the team a description of what had been done to the victim.  It was done with surgical precision.

Later, the prime suspect is found burned to death.  This time the killer left a drawing at the site of what appears to be an Aztec diety.  From a professor of Meso-american studies Yorke learns that the killer likely included cannibalism in his ritual.

News comes into the office of another killer that has returned to the area.  Lacey Ray is back from France where she had escaped to after killing a man the police were looking for in a previous case.

The team’s luck changes when a potential victim manages to escape the killer.  What can she tell them other than his description?  Will her description lead them to the killer before he kills again?

Author Wes Markin’s thriller is fast paced and full of horrific detail; not a book you would want to read just before bedtime.  All-in-all an otherwise good read.