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In the strictest sense of the genre, BLOOD MARKS is not an ordinary mystery. It is, however, a very well written, exciting, suspenseful, thriller of a novel; a page turner, something for readers who like the delicious experience of frightening themselves half to death while reading alone in a dark room under the pool of light from a single lamp. During a span of many years, the Houston Police Department has been baffled by a seemingly random series of killings. Nine young women, all between twenty and thirty years of age, with no apparent connection to each other, have been brutally murdered. The killings have occurred in different parts of the city by different methods, and there is simply no discernible pattern. In fact, a serial killer is loose in Houston. Crider presents, a fascinating, twisting story and peoples the pages with intriguing, carefully drawn, characters. There is red-haired Romain, the twitchy, messy, probably brilliant chainsmoking police psychologist. The Police Chief, frustrated, driving his investigators. The unsolved murders are mounting in number. He came with a reputation for solving a serial murder case in another city. And there's Howland, an experienced homicide investigator, an avid non-smoker, tasked to find the link, if there is one; to get the killer or killers behind bars. Eventually Howland does discover a link. And then begins the careful, carefully plotted work of putting together the tenuous links and threads that will eventually lead to the proper conclusion, to a serial killer. The many classic elements of suspense, the perennial questions, are all extremely well handled right through the smashing climax in this explicit, hard-edged story.
Reviewed by Carl Brookins, April 2003
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