Why You'll Love This
A serial killer staging crime scenes like Catholic rituals — and the detective realizes she knows the next victims personally.
- Great if you want: a queer-centered procedural with real stakes and friction
- The experience: tightly paced, with mounting dread as the pattern clicks into place
- The writing: Maiorisi builds tension through character conflict as much as plot mechanics
- Skip if: you haven't read book one — the partnership dynamic needs context
About This Book
When a gay man is found murdered and ritually posed — rosary in his hands, incense in the air, Gregorian chants playing softly nearby — NYPD Detectives Chiara Corelli and P.J. Parker know they're looking at something deliberate and dark. But as more bodies surface, arranged with the same chilling precision, the investigation shifts from urgent to deeply personal. Catherine Maiorisi builds her tension carefully, letting the ceremonial staging accumulate meaning until Corelli realizes that the killer's list isn't finished — and that people she knows may still be on it.
What makes this second Chiara Corelli mystery worth reading on its own terms is Maiorisi's command of layered conflict. The serial killer plot is compelling, but it runs alongside a portrait of two detectives who are still learning to trust each other, inside a department that hasn't made that easy. Maiorisi writes institutional friction and personal loyalty with equal precision, and the result is a procedural that feels genuinely inhabited rather than assembled. The pacing is confident, the characters carry their histories, and the stakes feel earned rather than manufactured.
