The Night Watcher

Edinburgh private detective Callie Munro shadows a vicious serial killer in this exceptional series kickoff from Ashkanani (Follow Me to the Edge). When Callie turns up at the home of Grant Miller, a violent client with whom she'd just gotten into a physical altercation, she finds it swarming with police. Grant's wife, Amy--whom Callie fears he's been abusing--has disappeared, leaving behind a strange hole in her bedroom wall that implies someone broke in. When the police appear reluctant to investigate, Callie steps up, soon discovering that in recent years, at least two other women in Edinburgh have vanished after their homes were breached in identical fashion. As the puzzling pushback from law enforcement continues, Callie makes an unlikely alliance with an underworld kingpin, who has his own reasons for trying to solve the case. Ashkanani avoids cliché at every turn, opening the novel with a brief, stirring chapter that gives voice to each of the killer's victims, and ensuring that Callie comes across as a flawed, three-dimensional heroine rather than a hardboiled cartoon. Meanwhile, his brisk, present-tense prose lends the action a ruthless air of inevitability. The result is an exemplary tartan noir that will leave readers eager for the sequel. Agent: Harry Illingworth, DHH Literary. (Dec.)